


I 



I 




Qass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



/ 



Ours is the Rule 



OF J:S^ 



Dead Men; 



OR, 



The Vote of the Masses, the 

Support and Check of 

the Classes. 



BY 

J. H. B002JBR. 



AT3VANTA, GEORGIA 
Publislied by 
PROGRESSIVE PUBIvISHING CO., 

661/2 WHITEHAI/I* STREBT. * 
1897. 







Ours is the Riile of Dead Men; 



C3, 



The Vote of the Masses, the Support and 
Check of the Classes. 




B 




J. H. BOOZER. 



5 J » 
) > 

) 1 3 

3 J 



ATLANTA, GEORGIA: 
Published by 

PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING CO., 

66j WHITEHALL ST. 
iSQ7. 



1213 



Copyright, 1897, by 
J. H. BOOZER. 






:> 



TO THE 

CAUSE OF LIBERTY 
Tins Book is Respectfully Dedicated 

BY THE 

AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 

[It is short, read it.] 

In the absence of any accepted or well 
grounded theory explaining the causes lead- 
ing up to and producing the present distress- 
ing industrial conditions, and in the absence 
of any satisfactory guiding principles to lead 
the nation out of said conditions, is to be 
found the incentives from which has sprung the 
inspiration and temerity that emboldens, up- 
holds and excuses the author in bringing the 
principles herein enunciated from obscurity to 
publicity. The book has a twofold intention. 
It demonstrates that men with convictions 
which have been formed by individual study 
of present and past governmental environ- 
ments are the natural statesmen of the age, 
regardless of whether they have or have not 
made money, and that no age or government 
is in a healthy condition if this class of 
men have no voice in public affairs, but are 
choked off by selfish and incapable men 
declaring said convictions to be undemocratic 






or unrepublican if they were not laid down by 
Jefferson, Adams, Webster, Jackson, Lincoln, 
Clay, Calhoun, or some other of the great dead. 
In this connection the book clearly bring-s out 
the fact that nations during the dead level of 
their existence subordinate governmental 
questions to the absorbing passion of money- 
making, and that true statesmen are very 
much in the way during this period; they 
must wait until danger is imminent, then 
the money-makers are perfectly willing 
to step aside and hide themselves in bomb- 
proof retreats and wait for statesmanship, 
bravery, valor, and self-sacrifice to take 
charge and clear the country of the enemy, 
and how, after the danger is past, the little 
men slip back and worm themselves again 
into control. 

The second purpose is to show how the vote 
of the masses should hold this class (the 
manipulators of money) in check for their 
own and their country's protection, and that 
the true business principle of politics is to put 
a check on every man and principle engaged 
in said politics. Labor has the most arbitrary 
check over it at all times, while capital is with- 
out check. In this connection it is fully ex- 



plained how all purely secular principles 
unchecked unfailing:ly run to extremes, and 
that an extreme in human governments can 
only be met and conquered by an extreme 
remedy commonly known by the name of re- 
bellion or war. 

THE AUTHOR. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Chapter. Page. 

I. The Claim of Monopolistic Business Men. Our Crisis 

and its Causes 9 

II. The Rule of Dead Men Makes This a Day of Little 

Men 15 

III. The Class of Men who Aspire to Office, but who Antago- 

nize Good Government 18 

IV. The Modern Science Deception 21 

V. Labor the Best Friend of Capital. Extremes Should 

Have Check. Capital's Burden Unbearable. 23 

VI. Campaigning wuth Prejudice and Its Ally, the Political 

Ring 27 

VII. Republican Form of Government Does Offer Relief if the 

jSIasses will Keep Capital Down 31 

VIII. Some Evils of Our Present Policy, and How We Are to 

Meet Them 39 

IX. How Young ]Men are Made the Dupes of Boodle Com- 
binations 45 

X. Newspapers and Their Uses 50 

XL The Projective Power of the ]\Iind in Public Affairs 54 

XII. How Dead Statesmen Influence the Present Art of Law 

Writing 57 

XIII. The Writing and Interpreting of Our Laws Intrenched 

Behind Gold Breastworks '. 62 

XIV. History Has No Influence on the Present. How People 

Learn They Have a Right to Think and Act 66 

XV. Evils of Partisan Politics 72 

XVI. How Monopoly Makes Conquest of Sections Under the 

Espionage of Party 78 

XVII. Our Men who Are Authority On All Subjects Superior 

to Party 83 

XVIII. Where and How Monopolists Get Their Tools 88 

XIX. Some Sketches Which Give the Voter Light on What 

to Expect of Men. Why Suicide Increases 91 



Chapter. P^^^- 

XX. The Middle Class the Best. Men Never Get Enough. 
How Nations May Drift into Nations of Thieves. 

Statesmen are Poor ^Men 97 

XXI. Civilization and What It Is. How the Rothschilds Con- 
quered the World loi 

XXII. Primary Laws are Simple, but Grow Complex Rapidly. . . io8 
XXIII. Civilization Cuts Off Competition. The Evils of Small 

Organizations ^^3 

XXIV. How Civilization Uses Anarchy and Free-love Scares. 

Who the Real Anarchists Are n? 

XXV. Organizations of All Kinds Become Compulsory. The 

Folly of Strikes 121 

XXVI. Organization of the People will Succeed if Outside Man- 
ipulation is Prevented 125 

XXVII. How Monopolists Manage to Take Advantage of Sacred 

Things ^31 

XXVIII. Young Men in Politics i39 

XIX. When Men" Reach Their Permanent Rut and Become 

Obstructions ^43 

XXX. The Overweening Desire to Hold Ofhce 148 

XXXI. Success in Life Depends on the Laws Affecting the Mar- 
gin on Which Individuals Do Business 150 

XXXII. Some Suggestions on Personal Success and What it 

Implies 156 

XXXIII. National Success. How to Get Rich in America To-day. 162 

XXXIV. The Great Financial Question. Free Silver 166 

Love's Limitation i77 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men; 



OR, 



The Vote of the Masses, the Support and 

Check of the Classes. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Claim of Monopolistic Business 
Men. Our Crisis and its Causes. 

All over this land is heard the declaration 
that business men are taking; a hand in pol- 
itics. This is said to be a g:uarantee that 
the affairs of state will be properly regulated 
and put on a safe basis. Since they have 
been successful in business, there can be no 
doubt that they will be as successful in such 
state matters as are entrusted to them. The 
manifest truth of this hypothesis being; be- 
yond question, they declare— and have their 
friends declare— that they, and they only, 
are available in these hard times. With 
this maxim as their watchword they go to the 
masses and ask their vote, which is the only 
power that can establish them in the places 
they seek. 

9 



10 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

There never was a more cunning:ly devised 
appeal nor one more utterly devoid of truth, 
though made in good faith by its advocates. 
No doctrine is dangerous until it is backed 
up by faith, but when its adherents once firmly 
believe theirs is the only possible safe course, 
and that they are not only defending their own 
interests, but are defending truth and univer- 
sal good, there is reason to fear the worst. 

When human beings have reached this ex- 
alted state of mind in regard to a question, 
they are superior to reason. All antagonism 
to them, if supported by cogent argument, 
appears to be inspired by selfishness and wan- 
ton corruption. The more forceful the argu- 
ment the more devilish and anarchistic it 
seems, and the more frantically they throw 
themselves in the breach with the hope of 
checking it. The idea of admitting that the 
opposition might be right is not considered. 
The questions are: (1) What will prevent 
the people from accepting such doctrines? (2) 
How can the public mind be alienated or 
prejudiced against them? (3) What new 
thing can be introduced that will divert the 
public mind from this dangerous channel? 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. ii 

Pit two such opposing factions in the arena 
of poHtics and you have the crisis of to-day in 
Georg-ia, in America. Governments have been 
formed and reformed with the hope of elimi- 
nating or harmonizing this kind of crisis. 
Finally, the Republican form of government 
was evolved and proudly proclaimed to be 
the triumph of human endeavor. 

Faith, some one has said, has only one 
rival, and that is equal faith; internecine strife 
and revolution in strong governments is im- 
possible without it, and, it is to be feared, inev- 
itable with it. Since this principle has entered 
into every branch of our government, from 
municipal to national, all elections become 
dangerous elements of difference, and help to 
hasten the clash, therefore, the number of 
elections should be reduced to the minimum — 
the public mind should have ample time to 
cool and think. 

Much that will prove disastrous in the 
future might yet be avoided by unswerving 
fidelity to thorough and open organization on 
the part of the masses. 

Secret manipulations, such as bribery, chi- 
canery, the use of whiskey, prejudice-inspiring 
demagoguery, job-hunting politicians, corpora- 



12 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men 



tions, trusts and aggregations of capital should 
be overwhelmed with a mighty avalanche of 
votes. The country is not yet without hope 
that it comes within the scope of reason to be- 
lieve that they might see and accept the sit- 
uation. 

As long as the present bickering and hand- 
ing to and fro oi such choice epithets as thief, 
liar, fraud and anarchist, free-lover, etc., con- 
tinue, deep seated will be the prejudice, 
and thirst for revenge and extermination. 

Could such a happy vote be obtained in the 
near future, and the laws revised so that pros- 
perity would speedily follow, the nation would 
be tided safely over the present crisis. The 
noblest revolution known to history would be 
successfully and bloodlessly accomplished; by 
doing this the nation would triumphantly put 
in place the grandest jewel in our diadem of 
matchless gems. 

This, and this alone, will make the Repub- 
lican form of government prove its real worth. 
This will show the true value of the universal 
ballot and laws of equality, and dispel the ris- 
ing shadow of an emperor. A reign of terror 
can only be stayed by the strong hand of an 
absolute monarch or dictator. 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 13 

Consider this dispassionately: If America, 
which claims to be so advanced in every walk 
of life, fails to establish the full strength of the 
Republican form of government in this crisis, 
it will be the proudest triumph of monarchical 
governments. They have said that it was in- 
trinsically weak— fit for use in young coun- 
tries only; that in densely populated and large 
countries, where the resources had reached 
their maximum and had to be husbanded, it 
took a strong arm to rule, and one that was 
not subject to the unstable caprice of the igno- 
rant clamoring populace. Many good citizens, 
for these causes, have been heard to say, after 
all, the security and stability of the monarchical 
form was to be preferred. Our own subjects 
are becoming contaminated. Besides, the 
circle of this globe is complete; there are no 
more ereat unknown inhabitable lands to be 
discovered in which to try new experiments. 
The only feasible way to prove the worth of 
a form o£ government, is to start it in a new 
country, uninfluenced by any other form, and 
let the people grow into it. Therefore, every 
American citizen owes it to the world and 
mankind to do his best and be slow to anger. 
He owes it to himself; he has but one life; he 



14 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

should make that as bright and happy as he 
can; the time will come when he will have to 
die, and he can not be prepared for death with 
hate and murder continually in his heart. God 
has not left us ignorant of what eternal pun- 
ishment is, nor how his laws are transgressed. 
The history of civilizations from the rise of 
the Egyptian to the rise of the Napoleonic 
era, proclaims that they progress with safety 
until such crises have attained their full frui- 
tion. When this time arrives it indisputably 
proclaims the sorrowful fact that the barba- 
rian is the conqueror. Such conquerors may 
and often do waste themselves in lascivious 
excess, but while doing so the lawless icono- 
clast beheads the noble and brave, debauches 
the learned and cultured, rapes the chaste and 
plunges the nation backward hundreds of 
years into the abyss of dark ages. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Rule of Dead Men Makes This a 
Day of Little Men. 

It is comprehensibly said that this is a day 
of Httle men. Instead of capable statesmen 
beino- at the helm of the ship of affairs, we 
have the bones of Jefferson, Jackson, Monroe, 
Calhoun, Lincoln and others, brought out and 
paraded before the masses by those who claim 
to be competent to guide our destiny. No one 
can deny that these men were great, nor deny 
that they faced exciting and irreconcilable 
crises. It is inspiring to read of how they rose 
up, invincible giants, athwart the path of the 
enemy. We can but see how they compared 
the exieencies of their time with times past, 
grasped the nature of the difference in the ex- 
citing causes and applied original statesman- 
like remedies. Such self-abnegating, laborious 
effort will ever leave illustrious and imperish- 
able names. We can reach no higher plane 
than to be like them, by first mastering the 
past, then adding the accumulated differences 
up to the present and applying the suggested 



15 



i6 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

orig:inal laws, looking; to the general ameliora- 
tion of the nation, and repudiate the present 
narrow policy, which considers only the in- 
crease of the power of the classes. 

No one will attempt to deny that the hy- 
pothesis laid down by these and other contem- 
porary men are not reincarnated and heralded 
to the masses as the g-uiding principles of the 
hour. Nor can it be disputed that it is taught 
to be a crime to doubt or go contrary to them— 
they have become so sacred and hallowed by 

time. 

Had these men realized that their shades 
would be evoked (Thomas Jefferson feared it) 
to straddle laws upon this nation that are cal- 
culated to destroy all that they spent their lives 
in establishing, they would not have died with- 
out cautioning (as Jefferson did) the nation 

against it. 

There could not be stronger proof of the fact 
that we have no statesmen to-day, than the 
above truths reveal. 

The genius of this nation has ostracised ev- 
ery other consideration, and is spending its en- 
tire force in money-getting and sordid greed. 
The material out of which statesmen are made 
is relegated to the rear, hooted down and spat 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 17 

upon. If you would be popular in America 
to-day, make a study of and understand those 
who rule. Adopt their policy, say and do the 
deeds they wish done but cannot do on account 
of the transparent selfislmess of them; or, in 
other words, adopt the wrong; and oppressive 
view, and you will be all right; you will have 
friends who will stick to you and spend their 
money for you. Attempt to be a statesman 
to speak the truth, and nothing is too harsh or 
severe to say against you. There are no men 
in public life to-day of the latter class. 
However, they are in America in abundance; 
their patient and long-suffering indignation is 
smoldering and gathering forces in its hot-bed 
of suppression; soon the utmost limit of their 
patience will be reached, when thousands will 
spring to the front and ignite the nation's tor- 
pid ire. Could they but see and feel that the 
time was now how much better it all would end. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Class of Men Who Aspire to Office 

BUT Who are Antagonistic to 

Good Government. 

The word "masses" will be used to mean la- 
boring men, employees of all kinds, merchants, 
professional men and artisans of every class, 
who are benefitted by g-eneral prosperity; these 
should be the hereditary check on those who 
find their greatest prosperity and power in hard 
times, when men can be worked on arbitrary 
wages, when properties of all kinds can be 
wrecked and values manipulated by being 
thrown on a market where there are no buyers 
on account of scarcity of money. When this 
condition is surreptitiously induced, these hu- 
man vampires are in their element. They can 
pull down all competition, they can find exult- 
ing delight in getting at the head of great finan- 
cial corporations where large numbers have 
been coerced by spurious promises to invest 
their little all. There they will have the wid- 
ow's mite, and the orphan's portion, and the 
earnings of the dull sons of toil in their clutches, 

18 



OuKS IS THE Rule of Dead Men. 19 

to work their will with. After they have ex- 
hausted the capital in a section it is an easy 
matter to bring- on failure and sweep it all into 
their gfreedy maws by holding; the liabilities 
and buying' in the property without expending 
a dollar of money. It is not the lack of pri- 
mary money in this country that takes it out 
of circulation, but it is these methods. 

If this class of men get into office, then the 
city, State or nation is the victim. They first 
seek to surround themselves with men with a 
like tendency. They will then proceed at 
once to talk of progress, of all manner of 
improvements that call for outlay of money. 
Not satisfied with taxing; their own g-eneration 
to the utmost they issue bonds and tax those 
yet unborn. What can be afforded is not the 
question. There is always sufficient means to 
supply the advanced improvements in ample 
volume. This won't do; the future must be 
thought of. The misery of present times is 
said to be praiseworthy if posterity is bene- 
fitted. If we will stop and think for a moment 
it will be perfectly clear that posterity will rise 
up and curse us for straddling this incubus of 
debt upon them. They will froth at the mouth 
over our meddling" with their affairs and for 



20 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

our presuming: to think that there will not then 
be still g:reater improvements that they could 
have, but which they are unable to have on ac- 
count of their legacy of debt. 

The dominant motive behind this policy is dis- 
organization, so managed that the lion's share 
of the money finds its way into the pockets of 
the disorganizers. It would not be just to 
charge this policy to be deliberate and say that 
custom has given it the stamp of approval, 
but, nevertheless, the training of these manip- 
ulators is such that they believe that whatever 
is best for them is right for all. If others pro- 
pose schemes and wish to have the element of 
conviction embodied within them they must en- 
twine these perquisites for the officers between 
the lines, or their consummation must guar- 
antee advancement to higher stations, where 
the perquisites and emoluments are greater. 

When any stage, section, or form of the 
government passes under the control of this 
class, it has reached the hand of the profession- 
al wrecker and oppressor. Voters can uner- 
ringly ferret them out by their strategic cry. It 
is characteristic. They solemnly affirm that 
all their efforts are for the poor, the laboring 
and oppressed, that all others are insinuating, 
selfish demagogues, wreckers and anarchists. 



\ 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Modern Science Deception. 

The amount of deception practiced by the 
above-named class, if understood and ac- 
knowledg:ed, would make them know them- 
selves to be unworthy of confidence and base 
incrrates. While it is not claimed that they so 
understand themselves, their actions show that 
they fear the public mig-ht be influenced to so 
look upon them. This fear has caused an ab- 
normal development of the self-preservative 
principle that is always the creature of its cre- 
ator. They hate universal good and g-loat over 
its defeat and privation. Their hi§:hest pleas- 
ure mie:ht not be inaptly characterized by the 
appellation "fiendish," and, if so, the opposing 
emotions it stirs will not be less commensurate. 
Suppose it is not intentional; that does not re- 
move the fact that it is undeniably true, and 
if so, nothing could be more unwholesome or 
daneerous. Therefore, nothing is clearer than 
the necessity of putting this principle and its 
exponents outside the pale of consideration 
where public trust is concerned, and it should 

21 



22 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

be abruptly done, as a victory that is disas- 
trous to the enemy is a decisive victory. 

The plane of operation of this principle is 
not confined to public affairs; it is growing 
more and more to be the common practice 
among the people. If we take the view that 
its growth among the people made it possible 
for it to assume the robes of office, our condi- 
tion is indeed alarming and the demand for the 
remedy imperative. The tocsin of the conflict 
must be sounded in simple words, so that the 
weakest mmds will be stirred and strengthened 
into fidelity to the cause of liberty, fraternity 
and peaceful arbitration by the ballot. The 
centers of population are the great strongholds 
of this principle. Here it not only has its vo- 
taries, but an immense number who are de- 
pendent for a living and must do as their 
master bids. Our outlymg, sparsely settled 
regions can be depended on if our recruiting 
agents are true and loyal. The warmest sen- 
timent for the public weal is the ruling passion 
of their hearts and from their bosom our great- 
est statesmen have sprung. 



CHAPTER V. 

Labor the Best Friend of Capital. Ex- 
tremes Should Have Check. Capital's 
Burden Becoming Unbearable. 

From the operation of the principle just 
cited our people are g-rowing; into the belief 
that capital and labor are irreconcilable foes, 
This is not true. Labor is perfectly friendly 
to the legitimate use of capital. It might as 
well be said that a man hates life as to say he 
hates that which supports it, nor can capital 
animadvert against conscientious, painstaking 
labor. There need be no hesitancy in saying 
in simple language that labor is perfectly 
friendly to capital, nor does it readily grow 
irritable under its check, so long as capital 
pays a fair price out of its earnings. That 
which does exasperate labor is for watered 
capital to come forward with its unreasonable 
demands. If a company is making 25 per 
cent, they do not think of labor, but of selling 
more stock so that the per cent, may be re- 
duced, then they can put on a long face and 
go to labor, and say, "We are not making a 

23 



24 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

cent; how would you like to have your money 
in business and get only 3 or 4 per cent?" 
Labor is free from this because of the close 
check capital holds over it. The extremes of 
capital should have as e:ood a check. This 
can be approximately done by labor selecting 
the law-makers, or a majority of them. Labor 
has hosts of friends; let them come together 
and place this check upon the excess of cap- 
ital It will not result in any real hardship to 
capital. Experience teaches that no un- 
checked appetite or passion arising from and 
peculiar to mortal man continues to produce 
happiness m its extreme. It also teaches that, 
if capital is unchecked, it will go into extremes 
and produce misery. Capital itself acknowl- 
edges that its burden is almost unbearable; it 
can not rely on anything or believe anybody. 
When men are employed to do certain work, 
they either never finish it or do inferior work; 
it costs as much to watch it as it would to pay 
labor a price that would indemnify labor for 
the time that it would take to do the work. 
Labor doesn't enjoy any more than capital the 
wrangling over accepting work. If a man is 
forced to take a contract for less than he can 
.. live at, it can not be expected that he will 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 25 

finish it as the contract said that he would. 
Then if he fails to collect for the work, all his 
bills have to go unpaid. Forced into makin^^ 
a reputation for being unreliable and untrust- 
worthy, he falls into a sullen state of ill humor 
and vice. When ignorant men have ex- 
hausted their ability to be fair, and feel them- 
selves helpless to do more, they are sure to 
become, more or less, what they term, in their 
hearts, justifiable criminals; they will certainly 
take this view if they believe themselves to be 
victims of unjust methods or lawful oppres- 
sion. While capital can not see it, and would 
not admit it if it could, it would be infinitely 
happier if it had honest, loyal support in all its 
undertakings instead of forced obedience and 
careless waste. Thrift and honesty can not 
be supplanted by rigid laws, contracts, and 
superintendents. If labor feels that it is being 
filched out of its honest due, it determines that 
capital shall not be the gainer. A system of 
deliberate waste will ensue to this end. Cap- 
ital then feels itself outraged, and heaps 
curses continually upon the head of labor; 
the world takes capital's side and labor goes 
down in despair. 



26 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

Labor occupies a place in the world to-day 
analagous to that of woman; while she is chaste 
she is blameless; when her chastity has been 
purloined from her, for she never gives it up 
willingly, the world turns against her and she 
goes down in despair. When labor or its vote 
can be used it is praised and petted; when that 
time is past, it is spurned, because it has been 
so foolish as to sell its birthright for a mess of 

pottage. 

Nothing is so unbearable to a man as to 
think of going to a home where his wife and 
little ones are in want. The barrooms can not 
stay open late enough for him. 

How can people feel grateful for charity 
when they believe that those offering the chari- 
ty have unjustly taken their means of liveli- 
hood away from them and that they will use 
this charity to impose the belief on the public 
that they have benevolent hearts and noble 
characters. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Campaigning With Prejudice and Its 
Ally, The Political Ring. 

The condition of labor determines the plan 
of campaigning; when labor (which has the 
majority of the vote) is to be hoodwinked into 
voting against itself. 

Capital knows very well that labor, by rea- 
son of deception, has a deep-rooted prejudice 
against it. This prejudice appears unreason- 
able to capital, and it knows further that if 
their relations are fully explained by an im- 
partial party this prejudice is liable to take on 
a sudden and exorbitant growth. Hence, 
capital keeps its cohorts, the viper, prejudice, 
being the greatest, seconded by whisky and 
place-hunters, who are keenly on alert for any 
theory or man that is liable to carry conviction 
with it or them. As soon as danger comes 
near capital goes out and turns loose its dogs 
of prejudice. Where there is good grounds 
for strong prejudice, a stronger prejudice must 
be created. It doesn't make any difference 
who it ruins or how innocent from the charges 

27 



28 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 



they are— it must be done. If there is nothing- 
tangible to get hold of with a spark of truth in 
it, they seize hold of the intangible and make 
their victims out ag drinkers, gamblers, or 
frequenters of bawdy houses. Some one will 
justly rise to remark that it would be difficult 
to formulate charges without some starting 
point; so it is, and there is a starting point. 
Those whose duty it is to do the work take for 
their models what is in their minds and hearts. 
They attribute to their opponents what is in 
themselves; being thus always heeled and 
without scruple, they take the nearest cut and 
go before the public mind first, and, as they 
have trained help, they can reach the people 
before a reform movement can get started, 
they nip it in the bud. The reform movement 
finds itself lying prostrate under the infamy 
it had hoped to show the people that it in- 
tended to reform in very short order, and 
down it comes with a disgusted set of leaders 
who immediately proceed to declare that in the 
future they will have no more to do with 
politics— they are too corrupt. 

What is known as ring politics has evolved 
the most formidable system that has yet been 
unearthed. Ring politicians use prejudice first, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 29 

then plausible promises and persuasion where 
they are needed. When they meet a crowd 
that can't be caug-ht by this any more they 
g-row profoundly indignant and patriotic and 
the demagogues are even ready to fight if the 
bluff won't work. They will force a row, so 
that next day they can say "those infernal an- 
archists are unreasonable fanatics who are 
hell-bent on ruining the country." After their 
version of the occurrence has been carefully 
spread the public is usually with them. The 
other side can't do this because they have no 
model to build their theories on — they know 
their intentions to be honest, while the heeler 
element know theirs to be founded on noth- 
ing higher, to say the least, than self and the 
determination to win at all hazards, and they 
believe every one else is animated by the same 
consideration. The difficulty of meeting the 
ring, with its matchless preparation and skilled 
attack, lies in the fact that their armor posses- 
ses some of the characteristics described by 
the word impregnable. The nature of man is 
in sympathy with evil and error; it is his reason 
only that desires virtue. Unhinge his reason 
by prejudice or any other method, and evil is 
sure to triumph; the voice of right will faH 
unnoticed on tympanums so thickened 



30 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

If this view is correct, reform has fallen into 
desperate straits. Hope is already hoverine: 
over it ready to wing; its flig:ht to more con- 
genial climes. But hope is beneficent and will 
return if we will throw off sullen stupidity and 
fight the battle on the grounds of truth with- 
out knuckling to the base thought of a pull or 
that we will be ruined by the inveterate silent 
voice of the opposition. 

No party or class who has obtained the 
reins of government ever voluntarily relin- 
quishes them; because in that event their nar- 
row policy would have to be explained or be 
repudiated by themselves. But when control, 
as it is in America, is obtained and held by 
one class, manipulating all parties, it is diffi- 
cult to see how you are going to defeat them 
without a new party, if party policy is to 
continue, or actual war. The better policy is 
to drop the party and learn how to select men; 
to show how to do this, in all parties, is the 
real purpose of this work. The objection to 
this plan will be that it will array classes, 
but this objection can not be sustained; the 
classes should be arrayed in the proper way; 
then they will act as a check or safety valve 
for each other. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Republican Form of Government Does 

Offer Relief if the Masses Will 

Hold Capital in Check by 

Their Vote. 

No monarchical g-overnment has ever reached 
the crisis that is now confronting; America 
without armed rebeUion ultimately ensumg;, 
which those in authority were obliged to crush. 
But with us it is not so— there are no heredi- 
tary gods anointed, no class of men or party 
can continue a ruinous policy longer than a 
short term if the people understand and apply 
their privileges, which they can and will do if 
once they get on the right track. It is useless 
to deny that the class which is now in control 
has a firm and determined g:rip on the helm of 
affairs, and we can not deny that its tendency 
is wonderfully akin to the iron rule of mon- 
archy. In knowledge, the classes are far in 
advance of the masses, hence they know what 
the masses are thinking- about, and their as- 
cendancy is dependent upon their ability to 
mould the drift of the masses' thought. The 

31 



32 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

means at their command for doing this are 
very great; they have universally succeeded 
in playing upon the superstition and credulity 
of the people so cleverly that they (the people) 
have been incapable of reaching firm convic- 
tions as to what was right and what was 
wrong. To illustrate: If the first rumblings 
of what will prove to be a scheme which is to 
be forced upon the people have long been un- 
der careful revision, and the plans for success 
well matured, all opposition thought of and an- 
swers provided and taught to the outfielders, 
there is but little chance of failure. The mid- 
dle classes and professional men are intimi- 
dated and the lowest class bought, leaving 
only harassed labor to stem the tide. Labor's 
shortness of notice and lack of funds fail in 
such an unequal contest. Put them in posses- 
sion of sound, fundamental, simple rules, by 
which they may guide themselves and they 
can obtain time enough to thoroughly sift the 
matter. The threats that capital holds over 
professional men and the middle class is no 
small weapon; often they have felt the stinging 
force of the order to mind their own business 
and keep out of politics if they would succeed. It 
is pitiful to see how, under these circumstances, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 33 

labor is huddled like dumb, driven cattle, and 
marched up to the polls and voted. The sys- 
tem has long- been perfected and ably gener- 
aled, but there is a weak spot that can yet be 
reached; it is well covered, but its armor is not 
cemented well. If the system is unfolded in 
all its details, bare and simple enough for labor 
to fully understand and get it once thoroughly 
incorporated in their minds, the good work 
is done. This will lift the embargo of restraint 
from its friends and again launch the Ameri- 
can ship on the smooth and delightful waters 
of prosperity. 

Campaign lies are the first and most mali- 
cious stumbling blocks ; the people should 
know that, if a man is so bad, it would be 
known before he offers himself for office. 
This contumely comes only for a purpose ; what 
is said of a man during a campaign should 
not influence the voter one iota. A man's 
past life and conduct fixes the grooves in 
which his future will move. If he has con- 
ducted his business so that he is known as a 
man who is working strictly for self, seizing 
every penny he can claim justly or unjustly, 
he can be put down as a man who will sub- 
jugate every interest, public or private, to his 



34 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

own, and can be easily controlled by a small 
part of the spoils. If a man has habitually 
made money by buying up what is thrown on 
the market by reason of the failure of some 
unfortunate, his absorbing thought will be 
how to bring about failures, so that he may 
pursue his chosen vacation. Often men, de- 
luded by the success of such men, go to them 
for advice; the advice they will get, if fol- 
lowed, will end in failure. This class of men 
are natural disorganizers of all interests,except 
their own, and when they can make it profita- 
ble, fail occasionally themselves. They are 
always vitally interested in politics, as they 
have an ax to grind, so are willing to furnish 
the boodle campaign fund; they want laws 
that will help them in their business— laws 
which will cause failures. This is another of 
the real secrets of how money is taken from 
circulation : The man who buys first pays the 
price set by supply and demand; the man who 
buys up his failure pays about a fourth as 
much, which leaves three-fourths in his pocket. 
It is not the amount of money in the world 
that makes times hard— it is the laws regulat- 
ing its distribution. We might have moun- 
tains of silver and gold in the hands of the 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 35 

few, but that would do no g:ood— they have 
plenty now, but want what little there is left 
worse than ever. Neither men of this stamp 
nor their tools should be allowed to hold an 
office; the Republican form of g;overnment 
will prove a failure just as long; as they do. 
The men who have money have power enoug-h; 
those who haven't it must make the laws and 
hold them in check; then the Republican form 
of §:overnment will be the hi§:hest and best. 
Some will call this plan preposterous, as they 
do not see how labor or its friends can make 
laws to govern those so much in advance of 
them. Ah! there's the question; they are g:en- 
erally so far in advance that it is much harder 
for labor to live under laws that it does not 
comprehend, than the advanced to live under 
simpler laws that they fully understand. The 
unfettered pro§:ress of triumphant capital has 
not furnished that class with additional pleas- 
ure, and it never will; simplicity is the soul of 
happiness. If capital was not molested it 
would soon find peace and security would take 
the place of unrest and insecurity. The class 
which now holds the capital has a threaten- 
ing attitude against all others. They look 
upon every man as a probable enemy; con- 



36 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

vince them that this is not true, and that 
every man is their friend, and rehef and 
satisfaction are sure to follow. Soon they 
will be so happy over the new order of 
things that bitterness will be forgotten and 

forgiven. 

Contrast this with our present condition. 
No man feels sure of a living; he may at any 
time let slip some thought that will offend his 
masters, whereupon they will immediately 
withdraw their influence and patronage, let- 
ing him drop with a dull thud. It has come 
to that pass in these piping times of peace 
that no man, be he ever so competent, can 
succeed in any undertaking, unless he can get 
a pull, which means the approbation of a cer- 
tain clique. He must knuckle and bootlick 
and fawn on the power behind the throne. If 
those cringing demands are continued, what 
will become of the manhood of America? 
A people who know themselves to be rene- 
gades to principle will grow in a generation 
or so into cowards. Those who invidiously 
make such demands are selling themselves to 
the lowest order of tyrants, the lust of greed 
and dissipation. Where this is the case, there 
is nothing to wonder over when it is com- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men 37 

monly said that the hi§:hest circles are the 
most corrupt. Its devotees demand it, but 
this does startle when we remember that we 
are already accused of being- la§:gards in in- 
ternational affairs, g:iving up too easily to the 
sturdier nations. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Some Evils of Our Present Policy, and 
How We Are to Meet Them. 

The evils or errors of the times can only 
be met by thorough organization and agita- 
tion inside of organization. A thorough 
understanding of the remedies proposed, to- 
gether with numbers of adherents, must be 
secured to restore confidence and give stabil- 
ity to the cause of reform. Voters must be 
prepared to meet specious argument and 
withstand the prejudice-maker, and taught 
fully how the benefits of faithfulness will re- 
dound to them. They will then know that 
politics must not longer be left in the hands 
of those who have the money, simply because 
those who haven't it are unable to make the 
race for the want of it. The accepted fact 
that a man in ordinary circumstances, who the 
ruling class is not sure of, ruins himself by 
entiring politics should not obtain a moment 
longer while those who are popular and are 
the tools of the ruHng class can enter the race 
for office with impunity and be easily elected. 



38 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 39 

How lamentable is the condition that faces us 
when it can be truthfully said that America 
makes demagogues and rascals of her subjects 
before entrusting them with the conduct of 
her affairs. 

Under the present plan, when a man enters 
politics he must first make up his mind as to 
how much it will cost and as to whether or not 
he can come up with the boodle. Prudent, 
capable men from the people will see that they 
must decline, as they rightly conclude that 
there is no way by which they can reimburse 
themselves. This leaves the field comparative- 
ly clear to the slated men of the ring. Some 
men, over vain and confident of their special 
fitness for public station, make a wild plunge 
and spend piles of money to be elected. Af- 
ter the excitement of the contest it will take 
only a short time for them to see what a cost- 
ly and empty honor they have expended their 
time and money to win. They become very 
sore over the matter quickly and begin to look 
out for some way by which to recover ; they 
are now predisposed to become the toals of 
the men they labored so hard to defeat. What 
they have really done is the accomplishment 
of their own and their party's undoing. Or- 



40 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

ganization alone can overcome this deplorable 
condition by making the honor commensu- 
rate with the commendable expectation of the 
candidates. 

There is nothing enduring or satisfying con- 
nected with success under the former plan : 
Suppose, forsooth, enough men are bought for 
a price to succeed, which of the deep emotions 
of the soul does it stir, pleasure or pain ? 
Over this overt demonstration of man's frailty 
anything but the latter will be out of the ques- 
tion when time exposes the full trend of the 
influence set in motion. When men know 
that virtually the public are in possession of 
their price they lose their own self-respect. 
Those whom they have served can not give 
them much encouragement or places of trust, 
for they know how little will tempt them. 
They can not turn to those whom they have 
helped to defeat, for they also believe them to 
have sold themselves. The man who vehe- 
mently throws his influence for a class with 
whom he can not, in reason, sympathize, pub- 
licly declares himself to be working for a 
price, either bona fide money or place where 
he can draw a fat salary without regard to 
public utility. Instead of benefitting himself, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 41 

he has only succeeded in reducing- himself to 
the lowest occupation, that of doing" the dirty 
work of his principals. When these facts 
come before his vision he begins to drift 
down, down, downward. All hope is cut off; 
he has reduced himself to a drunkard and a 
beast. What effect does this have on those 
who have been instrumental in bring"ing it 
about ? It is impossible for them to remain 
in ignorance of it, because the horoscope that 
is continuously before them in the wrecks that 
they have made prevents forgetfulness. If 
they try to throw it off by becoming followers 
of the meek and lowly one, they find religion 
to be the shallowest of shams. Turn where 
they will, they are in the blighting scorch of 
this dreadful sirocco; nothing; short of total 
abandonment of themselves to this work and 
excitement will drive dull care and fear of 
death away. When they see a man who is lead- 
ing a simple, happy life they envy him and 
wish they could pluck the burning brand 
from their souls. The undercurrent of their 
lives is feverish and intensely reckless ; the 
fires burn so fiercely that nearly always the 
cord of life is snapped suddenly. When wc 
look for their diversions we find them reduced 



42 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

to very few in numbers; their occupations 
swing around the vital principle of life itself, 
therefore, their pleasures must touch the 
deepest current. Nothing fully reaches this 
depth except the passions grouped about the 
beginning of life. It is charged that there is a 
plank of free love in the platform of certain 
classes. Most people fear that the world is 
threatened by the vicious influences of free 
love but have not yet fully located the source 
from whence it is to come. Most of the 
distinguished examples of it have been 
found in the courts of monarchies and among 
the lowest class, who are out of the question 

in affairs of state. 

Where there are strong disturbances there 
will be great immorality. Carlyle tells us that 
about the close of the French Revolution all 
the young women seen on the streets were 
enciente or they wore something to make it 
appear that they were, it was so fashionable. 

There must be a time when there is no 
opportunity for the above diversion. Such 
time is more likely to be spent either in 
gambling or in the ecstacies of the artificial 
exhilaration following the use of whiskey or 
morphine. Few fortunes or businesses are so 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 



43 



laro;e but that the increasing; demands of this 
kind of habits will wreck them unless there is 
a supplementary income — some way of paying- 
the current demand. Men of ordinary intelli- 
gence very soon recognize this and begin to 
look about them. This demand has been 
promptly and openly satisfied by the lobby, 
which is guaranteed to furnish the best of any 
kind of amusement and the money to indulge 
in it and, if the man is of much force, a com- 
fortable bonus besides. All but a very few 
nowadays can be controlled by obsequious 
flattery and indulgence. This is not because 
men are weak and naturally depraved, but 
because of their environments. The laws 
governing the world are immutable and it is 
the veriest rot to say that any puny man can 
rise above them. If man would avoid these 
cesspools, he must stay outside the circle of 
their fatal influence. Men whose past predis- 
poses them to this kind of living will sooner or 
later be the slaves of monopoly, and, as our 
system estops men of ability, the political 
treadmill is left open to this kind of men and 
monopolists only. The people must throw off 
their stupor and select men who have stayed 
outside this circle, as did the men when there 
were statesmen in America. 



44 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

When the leaders of the machine are them- 
selves successful they do not always lead such 
wild lives The fascination of manipulatmg 
others and the management of their schemes 
occupies their mmds to the exclusion of other 
things There is no time for thinking of the 
suffering that their success will entail upon 
millions; they have taught themselves to be- 
lieve that a few thousand or so lives cuts no 
figure when a principle is to be demonstrated; 
in addition, they have such a great bill to pay 
that they feel perfectly justifiable in niak.ng 
those who caused the expense and trouble not 
only to pay that back, but to pay a profit com- 
mensurate with the superior ability it took to 
manage them. This kind of talent is the high- 
est priced of all; it pays itself out of the gen- 
eral funds of the people. _ -_ 

Organization with proper discrimination be- 
tween men will put a great stumbling block in 
the way of this and all kinds of waste. 



CHAPTER IX. 

How Young Men are Made the Dupes of 
Boodle Combinations. 

The application of the law §;overnin§- cause 
and effect finds its most natural plane of opera- 
tion in politics; however, it is utilized with 
equal facility in business. When a boom 
concern has outlived its boom, as all of them 
do (the few exceptions do not chang-e the rule), 
and no more investors or victims can be 
fleeced, the time has come for it to wind up 
its affairs. The shrinkao'e in the hio;hly in- 
flated stock is bound to soon become known, 
making: an awkward predicament for the 
promoters. They §;et out of this by taking- 
up some presentable young' fellow, invite him 
to their homes, propose him for membership 
at their club and turn over money to him so 
carelessly that he soon borrows to pay his ad- 
ditional expenses. His employers know full 
well that their scheme is working-, so they shut 
their eyes until the books are satisfactorily dis- 
torted and confused, and to shut them long;er 
might be to allow him to g-et a few dimes that 

45 



46 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

they might be able to use in winding up the 
affairs of the concern. When the directors 
see that things are in proper shape their vic- 
tim is promptly arrested and a sensational ac- 
count given to the papers with the purpose of 
bringing the investors into the proper frame 
of mind as to what they are to get. In a 
few days an expert accountant discovers the 
books to be in a perfectly wretched condition; 
nothing can be positively traced. It takes 
time for all this to happen, perhaps two or 
three years or more. How absurd it is for 
these men who are celebrated for their busi- 
ness acumen to say that they trusted this 
man so implicitly, that they never dreamed of 
such a thing, though this is the only excuse left 
to them; a simple child could have seen 
the evidences of peculation any time from the 
beginning. However all this may be, the con- 
cern is insolvent and hopelessly involved. The 
managers pour oil on the troubled waters 
by promising, if let alone, that they will do 
something for the investors in the wmd-up, 
but if they are not patient everything will be 
wasted by the property being thrown on the 
market with no buyers and the expense of 
liticration to be met. Finally, a small percent- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 47 

ag'e of their holding's is realized by officers tak- 
ing* the property at their own price and the 
company is out of existence. This plan alter- 
nates with that of throwing the property on 
the market and buying- it in. During; the prog- 
ress of these failures the subsidized press has 
played very artfully and cunningly upon the 
minds of the dupes and the public. They 
play between the extremes of total loss and 
entire liquidation. When the company is 
ready to ring down the curtain on the last act 
the papers prove their transcendental sway 
over the public; they take up the leading; 
actor in winding; up the company's affairs, 
publish a large, benevolent-looking likeness of 
him and loudly extemporize on the philan- 
thropy disclosed by his able manag;ement. 
By his truly extraordinary business talent the 
assets have realized way beyond that which 
might have reasonably been expected, w^hich is 
proven by the creditors receiving a few cents 
on the dollar. The crowning height of the 
folly to which the papers sell themselves is seen 
when they wind up by saying that when the 
time comes round again to select officers for 
public trust and honor that no more thor- 
oughly honest and efficient man can be foun \ 



48 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

When we look behind all this g:ush we see 
that the truth is about like this: the man 
eulog:ized put on foot the scheme that col- 
lected all the hard-earned savings by prom- 
ising enormous returns without risk— a sure 
thing; having gotten all that he could get at 
that location he seeks to make the death of 
that scheme the birth of another, where he 
will have his clutches on bigger game, cities, 
States, and nations. If an unsuspecting citi- 
zen succeeds in getting hold of a few dollars, 
this class of vultures will soon wrest it from 
him by finding out the kind of investment he 
wants, and moulding their company's methods 
exactly to suit. There was a time when these 
organizations could not vend their plausible 
concoctions with impunity, because all those 
who were induced to become fellow conspira- 
tors were liable for the debts. Thereupon the 
organizers put their heads together to help the 
poor people by giving all a chance to make 
fortunes, and had the law changed so that 
corporations could be formed without the in- 
dividuals being liable. The artful dodgers saw 
that this hyperbolical philanthropy would hide 
their real intention, which was to give them- 
selves absolute freedom to prey upon the peo- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 49 

pie at will without endang'ering' themselves. 
This law should now be changed so that the 
organizers and promoters would be responsi- 
ble to the investors first and to other creditors 
second, to the extent of their property. They 
should also be held responsible criminally for 
negligence and peculations and when salaries 
are manifestly larger than the concern can 
pay. If this was done the money question 
would assume some definite shape, as then 
some of the money could remain in the hands 
of the people, but it is hardly to be expected 
that this class of men will themselves make 
such laws. 



CHAPTER X. 

Newspapers and Their Uses. 

Our newspapers are the principal agents 
throue:h which the people are reached by the 
class of financial sharks mentioned in the last 
chapter, but no one will be so unjust as to 
charge that the newspapers deliberately de- 
ceive the people for the sums paid them. What 
is in the write-ups and advertisements that they 
are paid to publish they are not responsible 
for except to the extent that they do not in- 
form the public in regard to this. This, with 
the influence and large blocks of space, paid 
well and ungrudingly for, is the food of the 
papers and enables them to give the people a 
better paper at a small price, which enables 
more people to take the papers and broadens 
the field for advertisers. The man who can 
spin the biggest yarn over the least truth is 
accepted to be the foremost advertiser of the 
day. When newspapers voluntarily write up 
a business venture they sometimes are honestly 
trying to serve the people; at other times it is 
to induce the business man at the head of the 

50 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 51 

venture to take a lar^e block of advertising 
space. Strate§;y is not lying-, and all business 
lies are pure strategy. Everybody says that 
you can't believe anything you see in the news- 
papers. The newspapers are no more to blame 
for this reputation than the people. As servants 
of the people they would not be good servants 
unless they could satisfactorily execute the de- 
mands of the people. 

The enterprise is launched and has pursued 
its meteor-like course until its inevitable eclipse 
is ready to be announced. The excitement 
born at such moments eradicates the memory 
of the way by which the business was built. 
The all-important question is to find out how 
much it is going to pay. The situation is now 
such that it is the obvious duty of the paper to 
get all the inside information it can and give 
it to the people. The papers are quick to re- 
spond, and send right off to the men who have 
paid them so much money for the version that 
they want the people to have at that moment. 
Every day they are furnished gratis with this 
opportunity of playing at will on and measur- 
ing the temper of the public. By this they 
learn how little they can pay and reserve some 
measure of respectability. All the paper gets 



52 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

for its labor now is honor for its commendable 
enterprise. Aye! but it is useless to inveigh 
ae:ainst the inevitable; why be unpleasant over 
the matter? It is not the purpose of the author 
to inveigh or be unpleasant; the point aimed 
at is not to stop the papers or curtail in any 
way the freedom of the press, but to educate 
the masses so that the press will give them in- 
valuable information concerning the methods 
of the men whom they select for preference. 
Men who have used the papers as described 
are without a spark of patriotism. The gener- 
al good in their minds is based upon their own 
emolument or advancement. The power to 
read between the lines of this kaleidoscopic 
glass can be developed until the papers will 
always contain invaluable information instead 
of deception. When the people once see 
clearly from this point of view they will be 
ready for any change of tactics on part of pa- 
pers. 

The papers are not improperly said to be the 
pulse of the nation. Its range is as varied as 
the anatomic pulse of man. Skilled physicians 
have mastered the latter by hard study, and it 
will take hard study for the masses to learn 
the former, though it is much easier. In the 
one case man applies himself to the unraveling 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 53 

of the laws of God; in the other he apphes 
himself to the understanding; of those of man. 
No mere man can think of a problem by which 
the public is to be influenced so profoundly 
that others can not see the incentive when they 
are put on notice as to the surroundings. Man 
thinks nothini^ originally; there must be some- 
thing to suggest every thought. He can, in no 
sense, be said to be creative in his powers, but 
he can become dominated by cultivating sel- 
fishness until it absorbs all power outside the 
narrow limits of selfish greed. If the newspa- 
pers continue their present course, they should 
not be restricted. Let them do their work. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Projective Power of the Mind in 

Public Affairs. 

A man can not think and promulgate deeper 
problems to suit himself than other men can 
fathom. He can not even think and believe 
hypotheses and hide them; his actions will 
betray him. Men are often amazingly sur- 
prised to learn that the pubhc is in possession 
of their peculiarities and practices, about 
which never a word has been said or an in- 
tentional sign given. Men who have learned 
to look at environments and accept their sug- 
gested thoughts as inspiration and who do not 
allow anything else to swerve them from 
these beliefs, are the men who so assidu- 
ously declare that such thoughts are not to 
influence one's beliefs. If the masses could 
learn that this was the only true source of in- 
formation, and act up to it, immediate ameli- 
oration would be secured. Herein lies the 
secret of the power that so disastrously rules 
America to-day. No one will attempt to say 
that the governments of the earth of this 
or any other age, were framed with higher 



.54 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 55 

aspirations than material g-ood. The govern- 
ments of the world then are based on man's 
conception of what is best for the world. 
Man's hig-hest conception of what is best is 
primarily based on what is best for himself. 
If this be true, then the laws of this sphere 
can not be other than selfish. To be other- 
wise they would have to be framed by men 
whose lives were dominated by the hope of 
the life hereafter. The world has never seen 
the day when this class of men were in the 
ascendancy. The majority doubtless profess 
to be, but a careful investig^ation will prove 
them conspicuous on account of their absence. 
Having; established this fact, its companion 
fact follows as a natural sequence. The gov- 
ernment of the world, being- formed on the 
basis of man's earthly desires, which never 
know satisfaction or tolerate restraint, could 
not be otherwise than at enmity with the laws 
of God, which do bring- satisfaction and com- 
mand restraint. We thus fix a sure foundation 
for saying our sovereig-n ruler, the voice of the 
people, at present is not the voice of God, but 
the voice of his opposing monarch, the world. 
If, under the above circumstances, one 
aspires to position and hopes to succeed, he 



56 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

must espouse the side upon which is the ma- 
jority. This places the succession in power in 
the hands of those who will continue the 
present policy. If this country ever e:ets re- 
form that part of our policy must be amended, 
at least to the extent of putting a number of 
godly men in office. Under our present cor- 
rupt political methods this class of men will 
never seek office. The danger that needs 
close watching on this line is, that most men 
who have reasons for aspiring first qualify 
themselves by their actions in religious mat- 
ters. They pay the above facts tribute by pro- 
jecting their minds beyond the demands of 
the people; they recognize that the people 
should make religious principles the ruling 
guide in their selections of men for office. 

Human nature is the same to-day that it was 
when God commanded Moses to write that a 
judge should receive no fee, as the hope of 
reward blindeth a man. It is imbecility itself 
to suppose a man's actions will, upon election 
to office, become higher and nobler than their 
cultivated narrow groove. To believe such 
things because some persistently tell them to 
you is to invite and hug to your heart decep- 
tion and poverty. 



CHAPTER XII. 

How Dead Statesmen Influence the 
Present Art of Law Writing. 

In times past, when there were yet patriots 
and statesmen in America, when the present 
regime was worming itself into power, it was pro- 
claimed by the former that majorities were not 
always right; that minorities had an inaliena- 
ble right to be heard, and not throttled and 
suppressed. They demanded this in order 
that their objections might be understood, and 
if right, adopted in the future. Such men were 
true statesmen desirous of the public weal; 
they were trying to carry out our principles of 
government — the greatest good to the great- 
est number. To the extent of being heard 
they triumphed. The dominant party of the 
classes dared not carry their plans with too 
high a hand. At this time the resources of 
the country were so great that the new mon- 
arch (the almighty dollar) could not prevent 
a goodly measure of prosperity. So the 
people forgot the warnings and became in- 
ured to the rule of their tyrant, though from 

57 



rs Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

time to time they have aroused themselves, 
and demanded some of the benefits that 
former statesmen had told them was their 
birthright; but while they, the people, had 
been asleep over their inheritance, their new 
masters were scheming over a plan to give 
them, when the time came, apparently what 
they demanded, and yet not abandon one iota 
of their own advantage. When the drift of 
public sentiment foreshadows the approach of 
one of these periods, the ruling classes com- 
mence to bestir their minds, as to how they 
wish to interpret the thought of the dead 
statesmen who first gave utterance to the 
principles upon which the clamorous populace 
founded their demand. The advantages of the 
dead statesmen are conspicuous; they are not 
here to contradict or to interfere ; the manip- 
ulators can interlard and leave out until they 
have changed the utterances to suit their pur- 
pose, and still claim to be the faithful disciples 
of the illustrious and immortal heroes. If the 
said heroes were alive their voices could not 
be drowned by loud and persistent clamoring. 
Here we learn that real live statesmen (and 
by this we mean men who are and were in favor 
of the greatest good to the greatest number) 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 59 

would be very much in the way of our present 
rulers. This explains why living- men of this 
stamp do not stand the ghost of a show in 
modern politics. When the problem is solved 
the law is written — from its context the 
people are led to believe that their wishes 
have been anticipated and acceptably met. 
The friends, orators, and papers of the meas- 
ure flood the length and breadth of the 
domain with its praise. They hobnob with 
and pat the voter on his back; they are ready 
to weep, if need be, in their deep gratitude over 
the foresight of the great and magnanimous 
statesmen who brought order out of chaos 
with their beneficent recommendation, and 
loud do they say that they are justified in 
hurling anathemas at the heads of those who 
dare to say that there are passages that makes 
the recommendation of doubtful meaning. 
Thus is the voice of reason drowned. The 
sovereign marched up to the polls casts his 
vote for the machine man. Now, that the 
recommendation has served its purpose, either 
all interest in the matter is dropped or it is 
carried before the legislative bodies and en- 
acted into law, either to become a dead letter 
or be construced by the courts to mean some- 



6o Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

thing entirely different. The courts could not 
be unfaithful (a fool will admit) to the power 
that made them, no more than a child can 
cease to love its mother. 

The author heard a lawyer say, quite recent- 
ly, in speaking of his onerous duties, that a 
corporation, for which he was State attorney, 
had telegraphed him that they understood that 
there was a law in Georgia that would prevent 
and hamper them in certain directions. They 
wanted to know if it was true and if true how 
they could get around it, and to let them know 
in forty minutes. They knew him to be loyal 
to the minds that framed the law, hence they 
knew that he would be able to send them the 
interpretation that the courts would sustain 
immediately after he had read the law. He 
telegraphed his opinion, which they accepted 
at once and proceeded to do business in Geor- 
gia seemingly in the teeth of the law. If any 
complained they would be treated and laughed 
at as silly and out of date for the views they 

held. . , 

The genius of writing and interpretmg laws 
in this way has become so consummate that a 
vast number of our people have begun to won- 
der whether we really have any laws at all. It 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 6i 

is a common thin^ to hear it said that unless a 
man has the money to hire a lawyer of this 
class he can not get a verdict and that it is im- 
possible to convict a man with money. Elo- 
quence and ability are no long-er of any conse- 
quence; you must promise to be the tool of and 
pay lar§;e fees to the right men to get a verdict. 
Right and wrong are lost sight of entirely. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Writing and Interpreting of our 
Laws Entrenched Behind Breast- 
works OF Solid Gold. 

The rise and success of this feature of our 
institutions is so marvelous and has become 
so firmly entrenched behind solid breastworks 
of gold that it makes the time when it will be 
dislodged with the vote of the masses appear 
somewhat distant. A movement often starts 
out in a very promising way, everybody is 
going to vote right; they have found that the 
government must change hands ; along towards 
the end of the race things don't look so bright; 
a lot of the most fluent talkers are strangely 
hushed and converted to the other side, reforms 
begin to totter and soon pandemonium reigns 
in the ranks of the reformers. All of this de- 
moralization can be traced directly to money 
and promise of place. One great trouble that 
must be stopped is this: most of the agitators 
who do the talking intend to sell; they are 
merely talking to run up the price. Men who 
have convictions and will stick to them must 



62 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 63 

become leaders, and supersede the others who 
are always ready with motions, sarcasms and 
blustering talk, with which to frown down 
opposition to their leadership. This thing 
we hear about all classes of men being" 
frightened out of their wits by the frown of 
the dominant class is surely a travesty on the 
manhood of America. Are the feet of our 
good men clogged with the fatal possession 
of honesty ? which is, of all stumbling blocks, 
the worst. If a man who is acknowledged 
to be above reproach essays to reach the 
public ear with a scheme, no one will pay 
any attention to him; he can't get the ap- 
probation of the financiers because he can't 
let them on to a soft snap. His scheme 
is what he says it is. But let a man with a 
plausible humbug start a scheme; he can go 
to our first financiers and get their opinion in 
the form of an advertisement in the papers; 
it's the only thing that such schemers are will- 
ing to pay for, because it is really what they 
intend to build their business on. 

Loyalty to the people was once held in high 
esteem in America; it has been rated the 
standard of character. We have been as 
proud of our statesmen as any country ever 



64 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

was of royal lineag:e. To-day they are the 
only drug: on the market that gives annoyance 
and yet they are the only safeg:uard to sor- 
did greed, because if greed had not said 
statesmen to fight it would loose its cement 
and devour itself. Our civilization is built 
upon the pedestal left by ruins of those that 
have fallen. They were all primarily laid out 
on the foundation-stone of equity. All the 
superstructures which have fallen have been 
built with gold. The ideal government of 
every people who reach the dawn of national 
life is the same as ours. When a nation is 
emerging from a rude and undeveloped state 
there is a splendid but rugged halo of honesty 
about it, but when its people begin to taste of 
the seductive pleasures of refinement, luxuries 
and riches they forget their vows and bow 
down to this new god. The only really great 
men in the history of any country are the men 
who guarded the nation in its formative period. 
When a few hundred years have past they 
cease to be men and become gods. This is 
how the ancient people who had no Bible 
found their gods. When death looses their 
grasp on the affairs of state, the desire for per- 
sonal aggrandizement and wealth takes pre- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 65 

cedence, and continues to rule until the fall of 
that civilization or until its manhood becomes 
honey-combed with corruption and divorced 
from bravery, which invites a conqueror. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

History of Former Civilizations Have 

NO Influence on the Present. How 

People Learn that They Have 

A Right to Think and Act. 

Here is a problem that may be interesting; 
to historians and thinkers. Is it true that his- 
tory proves that there are no statesmen except 
those who set free and organize new govern- 
ments or who are developed during revolutions 
brought on by such a crisis as the one which 
now faces America? Or, in other words, have 
all the secular civilizations up to this time had 
the faculty of emasculating their inhabitants 
of manhood, bravery and character? While 
a nation is working out its destiny on a plane 
void of stirring events, has there ever a man 
risen up and successfully reached the ear of the 
people through the dominant class, who were 
crying down all excitement on account of its 
disorganizing business, and made them shake 
off the terrible danger of their lethargy which 
was preparing the way for the ruthless hand 
of a rude conqueror? Did any country ever 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 67 

reach our condition without the law-making; 
conting-ent becoming; entirely lodg;ed in a class 
who had the power of money as well? It is 
passing- strang;e that the mig;hty convulsions 
and revolutions of the past, having; all sprung; 
from the same predisposing; cause, can not 
teach the voters of this country a way to solve 
our troubles by the ballot. The narrowness 
of business men or money-makers, who are 
never acquainted with history, but who are 
in control of this country, may account for 
our blindness in this respect. The approach 
of our crisis is only slig;htly different from 
those of the past by virtue of our advancement 
in the style of living; and Republican institu- 
tions, which are supposed to be especially 
felicitous in preventing; this form of crisis. 
Some lig;ht can be thrown on this state of af- 
fairs by comparing- it to men who play with 
whiskey, morphine and the passions; they 
have the wrecks of hundreds known to them 
personally around about them, they have fath- 
ers, mothers, brothers and sisters, preachers 
and friends, trying to make them appreciate 
the inevitable results, but nothing- can reach 
them. They can not or will not believe that 
they will not have the stamina to stop when 



68 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

they wish to; their trouble is that they fail 
to consider that they will not wish to stop, 
or if they do, it will be everlastingly too 
late, for they will then be ruined and dis- 
graced. Nations, being only aggregations 
of individuals, animated by the same human 
nature, pursue the same course; the ruling 
class will not admit the actual condition un- ' 
til the populace are too desperate to accept 
their overtures, or they can not make the popu- 
lace believe they are in earnest. When a 
nation has reached the stage when dead states- 
men only are allowed to speak and their tenets 
transposed to order by those who use them, 
said nation certainly is not progressing; on 
the other hand it is retrogressing. Those who 
mould the future exactly after the minds of 
the past, which they choose to select for their 
purposes, do not themselves understand the 
science of government, which fact they ad- 
vertise by this system. Said class is never 
prepared to fathom the depth of present feel- 
ing, and the future, outside of money-getting, 
is a blank; they trust to their volition and in- 
genuity to direct its channel their way. If 
they fail in this by virtue of the people having 
grasped the truth of their servile condition, 
they are lost in a helpless stampede. 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 69 

When the people fully understand that they 
never hear of a reform until they themselves 
think of it and force it, they will have learned 
that they have no leaders but men who are try- 
ing to restrain and use them; this also teaches 
the masses that they have the right to think 
and speak, and that they can not expect re- 
forms from those who are trying to convince 
them that they, the people, had better leave 
such matters to those understanding them. As 
every new fact opens itself to their minds their 
discontent gathers force and leaps from vil- 
lages to cities, from cities to state and nation; 
nothing can stop the impetus it gathers save 
revolution. Itwas beHeved by the founders of 
this republic that, under this form of govern- 
ment, such revolutions would be accomplished 
with the ballot, but the thinkers of to-day can 
very easily see that a republic can, by the use 
of unlawful methods of influencing the vote of 
the masses, fail as utterly as any of the older 
forms of government ; all classes have a very 
lively premonition of the impending end. But 
the threatened devastation confronting Amer- 
ica has one hopeful feature ; the dominant 
class has not been holding their power from 
father to son long enough for them to have be- 



70 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

come thoroughly steeped in the behef that it is 
theirs by right of inheritance or, as it used to 
be, by right divine. What our forefathers and 
fathers instill into our minds, from dawn to 
maturity, becomes an unalterable fact to be 
relinquished only with life. If this stage has 
been reached there is no remedy short of war 
and that in a bitter and destructive form. 
History repeatedly and clearly demonstrates 
that families and individuals who have long 
been allies and friends to fallen and dethroned 
monarchs, will continue to be a source of 
menace by their intrigues, that they can not 
become apostates. At a very early period 
kings thoroughly understood this principle 
and, instead of banishing, they killed to a man. 
If a man's life reveals a principle to which all 
others have been subordinated and he has 
reached the age of thirty-seven to forty he can 
be relied on to be inwardly true to that the re- 
mainder of his life. The vast majority never 
develop such principles ; they are the element 
that those who do get their following from 
such men may masquerade as the converts to 
other beliefs, but secretly they may be depended 
on should the opportunity present itself to help 
establish their former faith. To elect these 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 71 

men to office on a reform platform is to delib- 
erately place a viper at the breast of reform, 
and expect it not to sting; reform to death. 
The day of miracles is past; to expect men to 
be false to their faith, and that they will throw 
the same vim and ability into pulling- it down 
that they had shown in building- it up, is equiv- 
alent to thinking that traitors are the hig-hest 
order of men — fit persons to guide the destiny 
of g-reat nations. Our manner of selecting our 
officers lays us, as a nation, open to censure. 
We (the masses) have not considered the 
above questions ; they have been withheld 
from us in order that the party lash might be 
applied more bindingly ; the idea seems to be 
to handle the masses so that they will be ready 
to vote for a "yaller dog" if the party says so. 



CHAPTER XV. 
Evils of Partisan Politics. 

Rule by parties need not be evil; the orig- 
inal prerogatives that brought them into ex- 
istence are praiseworthy, but, like all other 
institutions in this country, they have suffered 
from the prevailing corruption. In former 
times the members of a party knew and had 
implicit faith in the principles of their party. 
They were in salutary harmony with each 
other. What American but points with pride to 
our great debaters, and who but thinks with 
shame of the wire-working, underhand, buy- 
ing method that has crept into the party and 
superseded them. Our statesmen who are clus- 
tered around the dawn of national life form 
our greatest and ruling galaxy. Up to the 
Civil War there were great men skilled in the 
art of government. The war itself produced 
an irradiating constellation; a few stars like 
Ben Hill lingered on for a season to shed 
their lustre on the earth, but to-day this kind 
of illumination has been put out; however, it 
is not extinct, but is the more dangerous be- 



72 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 73 

cause smoldering-. When this Hght ag-ain pen- 
tratesthe network of prejudice and selfishness 
now wrapped about it, it will have a transcend- 
ent splendor of beauty and g-lory to announce 
it, which will lift the scales from off the eyes 
of the voters and bring- within the purview of 
the most ig-norant mind the filthy sloug;h they 
have been wallowing; in so long; time. When 
this thing- is done a day of reckoning- will 
speedily follow. If asked what it will be like, 
I would reply by asking- what any one would 
demand who believed he had been subjected 
to every indig;nity and systematically filched 
of his rig;hts and dues to the point of starva- 
tion of wife and little ones. Knowing- that 
which we can not help but deplore in human 
nature, it is not unreasonable to expect a form 
of confiscation if a halt is not soon called. 
This very thing- is being- put in the minds of 
the masses by others charg-ing- them with 
wanting- it now. The fact that it is not the 
fault of individuals, but our system, will not 
hold in check desperate and infuriated human 
nature. The time may come when money- 
making; will g;ive place to the absorbing- 
thoug-ht of preserving- life itself, when the bot- 
tom rail will be on top. Our parties have 



74 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

gotten into the hands of the capitahst, and 
there is truth in the assertion that govern- 
ment under the dominion of capitahsts is 
government under the control of misers, and 
everyone knows that misers love gold and its 
power better than life. They dream of re- 
ducing men by want to do their will, and 
exult in the success of their plans. If you 
would put murder and anarchy in their hearts 
sure enough, stop them from avoiding all the 
legitimate expense of property in its relation 
to government and make the government, 
which to them and them only is paternal 
cease to bring fat to their frying pan. Noth- 
ing could make the populace more damnable 
in their eyes than this. Mark the prediction, 
it will produce a frenzy of madness and hate in 
them sufficient to set ablaze the conflagration 
that is to consume them. The masses are will- 
ing to settle the question by the ballot, the cap- 
italists will not accept it, and a fair count will 
become more and more impossible. 

Those who enjoy a paternal feature in our 
government call it protection to infant indus- 
tries, which they say is a laudable national 
pride. When the masses want anything it is pa- 
ternalism pure and simple. The above phillip- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 75 

pic and some that are to follow may be harshly 
criticised as much too strong- and exciting-, but 
when it is remembered that this work was writ- 
ten to show that man's tutelary deity, human 
nature, is g-overned by immutable laws, it will 
be seen that the deductions are perfectly con- 
sistent with the extreme feature under consid- 
eration. Parties are no long-er like they once 
were. Men may call themselves Democrats 
on account of their g-eog^raphical location and 
hold to the tenets of the Republican party, or 
vice versa. Two speakers from the same party 
will g-o oh the rostrum to prove opposing- 
principles to be the proper interpretation of 
the party platform. This lack of ag:reement 
among; those who aspire to lead puts those who 
are lead in a pitiably confused state. When 
they are reduced to this state they lose their 
grasp on principle, which opens the way for the 
demag-og-ue and wire-working; politician to 
grasp the offices of state, and takes the control 
of affairs out of the hands of those who would 
rule openly— those who would educate the peo- 
ple up to the full enjoyments to be extracted 
out of our originally benign government. 
This also gives the men with an ax to grind a 
chance to ingratiate themselves into positions 



76 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

without saying anything about it until their 
purpose is accomplished and they and their 
friends are all in office; then the work of in- 
sinuating said purposes into the minds of the 
people begins. At first, their plans are discord- 
ant, but they are wary and resourceful; their 
pliant instrument, the public press, is capable 
of the most seductive strains which, combined 
with the gentle lullaby of its ally, time, is 
irresistible in its power to produce torpor and 

sleep. 

Skill and genius in many branches have 
been wonderfully precocious, but in no depart- 
ment of life has their progress approached that 
of this siren. Human ingenuity can climb no 
higher. She stands without a rival and will 
not brook one; she must have all. Open organ- 
ization is essential now; men must see that it 
is to their interest to be true to themselves. 
The reason why so few men are true to party 
to-day is because they have been pushed into 
interpreting every principle to suit them- 
elves and their views. This is the deadly 
fungus of partyism and it has made effective 
party organization impossible; this has also 
given rise to a modern principle of politics, the 
art of disorganizing organization. Our two 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 'jy 

ereat parties are not in reality two parties; they 
have been, but are now used as a bhnd on the 
principle of hush money. The Democratic 
party of the South is controlled by the class 
that is in control of the Republican party of 
other sections. Nowhere is a law or principle 
allowed to be ag-itated that capital might take 
offense at, upon the idea that capital is shy and 
timid and can only be wooed to those sections 
which remove all obstacles from its path. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

How Monopoly Makes Conquest of Sec- 
tions Under the Espionage of Party. 

When monopoly is in search of new fields 
of operation it puts itself in communication 
with the leading capitalists of the section 
which it desires to spy out. Upon the as- 
surances received from such leading men as 
to the political outlook and their ability to con- 
trol the direction said politics will take 
depends their coming. When these prelimina- 
ries are all satisfactorily arranged, it is 
announced that a certain group of busi- 
ness men and financiers will honor the 
section with a visit. These spies don't come 
as they did in ancient times— secretly— but in 
palace cars. Instead of being killed they are 
met and regaled with the best the country 
affords. Our own dear papers hasten to cover 
them with praise, attributing to them every vir- 
tue. They take the most conspicuous and dis- 
tinguished up specially, giving short sketches 
of their lives. From the sketches one would 
suppose that their lives were as free from 



78 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 79 

blame as a baby's, and that all one had to do 
to make immense fortunes was to be perfectly 
just and economical, and possess a little busi- 
ness judgment; the idea of their ever having 
taken advantage of anyone is preposterous. 
Many of the transactions of these men that 
had, in time past, made their names stink in 
the nostrils of the people, will be so prettily 
glossed over until the impression they leave is 
most agreeable; time and distance has co-oper- 
ated to do this work for them so well that the 
undeveloped sections are willing to trust them 
without further investigation. However this 
may be, they want to make matters doubly 
sure; there is method in it. Instances will be 
given where they clothed the poor and fed the 
hungry in times of distress following disaster, 
often where the disaster had caused them to 
lose thousands. When the public sentiment 
is ripe every one who has a spare dollar is 
urged to rush forward and turn it over to 
them; they will make big money and put 
the section on the up-grade. Don't fool away 
your money, it is advised, with men who 
haven't made money; to be successful you 
must only have to do with men who have been 
a success. Pretty soon the books are open 



8o Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

for receivine: the names of those who will take 
stock. If the monopolists find that there is 
sufficient local capital to g:uarantee them 
against loss, when they get ready to crush out 
the small investors by failing or selling out 
their stock, the section is conquered. How 
happy the people are when the work com- 
mences; nearly all of them believe that they 
are either going to get rich or be greatly ben- 
efited, but time goes on and things sink back 
into the former level, and hope is dead; they 
have had so many explanations as to why 
things didn't pan out until they don't know or 
believe anything any more. Very often fire 
licks it all up and nothing remains; the in- 
surance didn't begin to pay the outstanding 
indebtedness, or some pre-arranged catas- 
trophe precipitates failure. The home direc- 
tors assure the people that all had been done 
that could be done; that the failure would 
have come much sooner had not the directors 
been so capable and generous; that many of 
them had either loaned the company private 
money or borrowed it from other institutions 
in which they were interested. The location 
just wouldn't do; that was the whole of it. 
The properties are forced to the block and sold 
with no bidders; this forces those who have 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 8i 

been so kind as to loan the company money to 
take the property and do the best they can. 
The people's money is all g'one, and no blame 
is attached to any one; everything is wiped 
out, so that the people will be ready in a few 
years to entertain another such visitor. When 
the curtain is raised and an inside peep at the 
actual working's of the company's affairs is 
taken things wall look a little different ; the 
amount of stock to be sold would amount to 
so much, which was to cover the cost of con- 
structing building's and buying machinery. This 
was put at double the expenditure actually re- 
quired ; half of the stock is sold to people on 
the outside, the other half is distributed among" 
the capitalists themselves and to the local 
leaders w^ho were to stand between the capi- 
talist and the people and manage the party, so 
that no law w^ould be passed that would em- 
barrass them. The monopolists paid them- 
selves big salraries and furnished sound risks 
for their other concerns. They had handled 
all the money and had all the perquisites. 
When the time came to fail they hadn't a cent 
of their money in the concern and could not 
account for the money the debts revealed to 
have been spent, which debt ultimately bought 



82 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

in the property. This course is pursued when 
the venture proves profitable; when they see 
that it is not they quietly dispose of their stock, 
which had been paid for in services to the peo- 
ple, while it is at par and the people's belief in 
it is not yet gone ; it is impossible for them to 
lose. Capitalists never sink their own money; 
they never use it. The way they operate is to 
organize companies and get the people to put 
up the money. Nothing will induce them to 
put money into their own schemes ; their plan 
is to get their stock gratis. No one can fail 
to admit the truth of these statements and yet 
the people are clamoring for more money 
upon the hypothesis that money seeks invest- 
ment and will in some way do them good. 
What the people will have to do to bring bet- 
ter times is to protect themselves against the 
capital already accumulated, enact laws that 
will give them a margin to do business on, 
then go ahead and put up their own factories 
and manage them themselves. They have as 
much ability as anybody ; most capitalists are 
simply bundles of brass that started from 
nothing — the only requisite characteristics of a 
capitalist is to be unable to see or feel for any- 
body but himself and to pretend to be full of 
sympathy for others. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Our Men Who Are Authority on All 
Subjects Superior to Party. 

When the so-called enterprising; men of one 
section are managing; affairs in conjunction 
with the same class of any other, there is no 
question of what their politics are. The par- 
amount question is what is best for their 
enterprise. Hence we see, when men climb up 
to this plane of life they are superior to party. 
Their financial affiliations serve to shape 
their political sympathy. They take advantage 
of sectional prejudices to g;et into all parties, 
and on questions that are of no interest to 
them they make the fiercest kinds of fig-fits, 
but when any law is proposed that touches 
their interests they find abundant reasons 
for rising; above prejudice and casting; their 
votes on business principles. It is manly, they 
say, to admit that which is really good in the 
opposition. Many good men, without know- 
ing exactly why, feel this to be true; you can 
hear them say that they are tired of party 



83 



84 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

rule — in the future they intend to vote for the 
best man, regardless of whence he comes. 

The old parties are having great trouble 
controlling their members; the professional 
whippers-in have been reduced to their dernier 
ressorf, they have issued the proclamation 
serving notice on those who vote with or for 
anyone except the party nominee, that they 
need not in the future hope to again affiliate 
with the party, and if they are allowed to vote 
with it they will never be allowed its support. 
Should this fail to rally and remobilize them, 
the old leaders will either have to give way 
to new ones or new parties will be formed. 
The trouble that our great parties are 
about to go to pieces over is that there 
is no living authority as to what their 
principles are. Every man that could and 
would give permanency and stability to 
them is dead, and the people are at sea. 
Nowadays platforms are not intended to be 
permanent, they are made with the view of 
catching the popular vote. Those who make 
them seldom state their reasons. They are 
as apt to take up a principle that is the oppo- 
site of what they claim, the people's good, 
as any other way. Our true politics are 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 85 

founded on fiction and political tricks. The 
man who is elected by fiction and tricks does 
not complain; he feels that the people have en- 
dorsed his campaig:nin^, and the people have 
endorsed this kind of campaigning for a long 
time. If this continues where will reform 
come in? Tricksters in campaigning will be 
tricksters in ofiice— they are compelled to be— 
they have got out so many promises and so 
much money to make good. They go to 
swell the majority who make laws that are 
travesties on what the people want. When an 
honest man goes into court he is painfully but 
profoundly impressed with the idea that the 
laws are made to evade justice and legalize 
wrong. If reform is ever to come it will come 
in one way only, and not until the masses or 
those who are interested in general prosperity 
and distribution of the money determine that 
the monopolistic class and their tools shall 
not have the money and make the laws or 
political parties, that the money power is 
enouo-h power for one class. This class has 
thoroughly demonstrated that no man should 
be without a check; if there is a deep-seated 
business principle in politics it lies in putting a 
check on them. This is another point where 



S6 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

the monarchical form now appears to have 
an advanta§:e over the way we conduct our 
affairs; those who inherit office have no po- 
Htical debts to pay and no outlay of money 
to reimburse, and, having; a lifetime tenure of 
office, they are interested in the people's pros- 
perity, so that their life may be one of useful- 
ness to the people and happiness to themselves: 
The objections raised before a Republican 
form was tried at this point were on account 
of the liability of the offices falling- into the 
hands of lunatics, imbeciles, or other objec- 
tionable characters. Our experience shows 
that the people are or have been decidedly 
more liable to put such men in office. Before 
electing; men to office we make them exactly 
what it was the purpose of this g;overnment to 
avoid. It doubtless will be said that this kind 
of talk is out of date, it has all been gone over 
and laid away in the archives. That is the 
point; we must renovate those archives and 
hunt up the first principles and g;o over the 
whole matter ag;ain. Order can not be broug;ht 
out of chaos otherwise. Government is not a 
complex problem until oppression and corrup- 
tion begin to work their nefarious schemes. 
Monopolists themselves teach the principle 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 87 

that a thoroug:h check is no dishonor to hon- 
esty, but a protection to it, as extremes are 
the lo§:ical results of all unrestrained activi- 
ties of man. Those who doubt or deny these 
facts are either blinded by self-interest or dis- 
honest with themselves, or they have so long; re- 
fused to admit that they could commit a wrong- 
and declare that the same actions would be 
wrong- if used ag:ainst them until they have lost 
the power of judg:ing; where rig:ht ends and 
wrong: beg;ins, or, in other words, where the 
g;eneral welfare is concerned, they are incapa- 
ble imbeciles. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Where and How Monopolists Get Their 

Tools. 

Manipulating financiers and monopolists 
are often prevented from themselves aspiring" 
to office, nor will the people always elect them; 
in spite of all that has been done there is an 
instinctive distrust against them lodged in the 
minds of the people. It is often the case that 
monopolists can not themselves ask for or 
actively agitate the laws they want ; the peo- 
ple would too easily "get on to them," as the 
expression goes. Their plan is to go among 
the masses which they mean to oppress with 
a political bee in their pockets. When they 
have found a popular man from said masses 
whom they can elect they put their bee buzzing 
around his ears. If the man selected satisfac- 
torily shows that he understands and will do 
what they want, without being told in so many 
words, he is assured of their silent support and 
substantial donations to the campaign fund. 
The campaign is opened with as pretty a piece 
of strategy as man has ever done. You begin 

88 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 89 

to hear it said that such and such ticket recog- 
nizes and has represented on it labor and such 
and such strength. There are many nicely 
turned periods and platitudes on labor and it 
is explained how labor will be benefited and 
capital handicapped. Successful opposition is 
out of the question and the man is elected. 
When said champion introduces his bill with 
a long- specious speech showing it to be the 
demand of labor it is sure to pass. If cap- 
italists want to prevent the passage of some 
law that would benefit labor they take it up 
themselves and agitate from the point of 
view of it being beneficial to capital, have all 
their satellites and henchmen cry it down as 
being monopolistic, and it will be snowed un- 
der. It is truly said that we have slick politi- 
cians in this country. They make the masses 
do it all themselves ; they only manipulate 
and mould them with a little skill and fore- 
sieht. Who will essay to doubt that such 
manipulators are as far removed from sinceri- 
ty as day from night — as heaven from hell ? 
These men spend their time in a business way 
in persuading sellers that what they have to 
sell is worth nothing, that what they give them 
for it is out of a pure philanthropic desire to 



90 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

help them. After having; bought they face about 
and persuade the buyer that the article is 
worth many times as much and that it is an 
unheard-of bargain. Men who profit by hav- 
ing" these two classes will carry their business 
principles into office with them ; and yet this 
country is clamoring for an administration of 
business men, who will conduct public busi- 
ness as successfully as they do their own. 
The success of their own affairs being de- 
pendent on manipulating public affairs, they 
could not be expected to run public affairs in 
a way to embarrass their own success ; they 
would lose both prestige and money by it. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Some Character Sketches That Will 

Give the Voter Light on What 

TO Expect of Men and Who 

TO Vote For. Why Suicide 

is On the Increase. 

We have a lar§;e class of men who are 
hig"hly respected, and whose reputation is told 
in epitome by saying- that they have plenty of 
sense but will always remain poor. Such men 
admit the value of anything- offered them, 
and if they are able and do buy it pay a fair 
price, therefore, if they sell ag-ain they can 
only make a small fair profit. It is well and 
truly said that this kind of transaction never 
makes men rich, hence they have but little 
effect in the matter of standing between those 
in need and those who profit by the need, and 
more especially is this true in times when 
money is close and want most prevalent. 

If the mind of man should ever ag-ain be 
restored to its equilibrium and a just apprecia- 
tion of its environments, this class of men 
will stand out boldly as being among those 

91 



92 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

most eligible for office in hard times; they, 
however, will have to be sought out and 
elected without expending much money. 
They can not aspire to office now, because all 
their time is taken up making an honest liv- 
ing; it's a hard thing to do. The man who is 
trusting to the stringent times to bring him 
his money and fortune has much idle time in 
which to lay his plans. If once a day some 
poor timid woman finds herself in distress and 
forced to hypothecate some possession of real 
value to tide over her pinch, comes to 
him to borrow a little money on said article, 
it does not take long to show its defects and 
fall in price on account of said hard times. 
She gets about half what she had hoped would 
be the least offered, and, trembling, scuds 
home sick at heart and ready to die over the 
thought of the heartless cruelty of the world. 
These are the vultures that follow in the path 
of the companies previously described as hav- 
ing, in a business way, gleaned the money out 
of the section. Often have they been heard 
to say that they had expected the men and 
women to suicide who did it, and if one listens 
to them they will go on to tell how they had 
been applied to for money and that on ac- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 93 

count of the needy ones having; been their 
friends in former times they had an unpleas- 
ant experience in g:etting- around letting them 
have it. They will even tell the long story 
of woe and inability that they had put up, and 
how they had finally driven them away with 
lurid prognostications of the future. 

There is a class of men who are bound to 
be seriously in the way in times like the 
present; they are commonly called pessimists, 
malcontents, and croakers; they see the drift 
of things and have a heart-burning desire to 
right them, hence, what they are continually 
saying is a thorn in the flesh of those who are 
profiting by misery. These men often happen 
upon a series of misfortunes most appalling; 
everything they touch is a failure, not from lack 
of sense, but because they are studiously un- 
dermined by those whom they have offended 
by their opinions. Whenever their names are 
mentioned their enemies will say ''Take my 
advice and let him alone; he's a croaker and 
no good," and shut their mouths. When every- 
thing is gone the poor unfortunate has no alter- 
native save suicide. There is a proverb that 
says truth crushed to earth will rise again; it ev- 
idently means that its soul will rise to heaven. 



94 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

In our material workaday world there is no 
such thing: as reality. A man or business is 
on a firm and soUd basis to-day— to-morrow 
g:one. Business principles are observed so 
long: as convenient and then departed from. 

Our banking: system shows the esteem in 
which a man's word is held; they will accept 
nothing but solid collateral. You may have 
met every oblig:ation that you ever made; 
such facts do not move them more than the 
gfentlest zephyr. You must have collateral 
free from encumbrances to g:et their money. 
If there are any schemes to float they must 
either float them or g:et the choicest slice of the 
pie and then they won't put up any money 
until enoug-h outside money has already been 
subscribed to make them a handsome profit if 
the worst comes. Many of them are fully aware 
of the wild schemes their names are being: 
used to foster on the people, but that does not 
matter; they have made themselves safe, let 
everybody else do the same or suffer. Where 
there is money there will be found a breast- 
work of conventional rules and red tape that 
is impregnable; you can come so near, but 
afterwards you must await the will of the lordly 
despot. But the people have no protection; 



Ours is the Rule of Dead I\Ien. 95 

they can be handled with impunity. Men who 
have some reputation can go out and tell the 
boldest lies and o;et the people's money and 
keep it. However, when they pursue this 
course they have their forms written different- 
ly; they do pay that much respect to law. This 
condition is hard to remedy by law. What the 
people oug:ht to do is to condemn and outlaw 
schemes where one idea is talked and another 
WTitten; if a man is not willing; to assume 
the responsibility of what he is talking; about 
he oug;ht to be forced to do so. The Bible is 
not far wrong; when it says: "The heart of 
man is deceitful above all things, and desper- 
ately wicked." 

From what has been said it might naturally 
be asked if all men are not in the same boat. 
No! a thousand times no! There are plenty 
of good men in the land yet; they are in every 
class. There are numbers of rich men w^ho 
are not financiers and monopolists. Some in- 
herited their money, some found mineral de- 
posits of value on their land, or a city built up 
around them, and in other ways men have 
gotten rich without corruption. These men 
are easily found; they are not in any w^ay the 
active promoters of wildcat companies and so 



g6 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

on, and they are hard to successfully counter- 
feit, though it is constantly enoug-h attempted 
for this to be called, in this respect, a nation 
of counterfeiters. While a poor devil of a fel- 
low will be sent up for counterfeiting a nickel 
of the precious money of the realm, licensed 
deception can inveigle the people of all they 
have and go free. Somebody has said that it 
was hard to tell on which side of a prison you 
would find the worst criminals, the inside or 
out. Are not those who are in prison often 
driven to crime by the laws that make others 
rich. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Middle Class the Best. Men Nev- 
er Get Enough. How Nations May 
Drift Into Nations of Thieves. 
Statesmen Are Poor Men. 

What is known as the middle class contains 
by far the greatest number of honest, brave 
men and virtuous women. It is therefore 
higher than what is termed the first class. 
They do not dress so well or support so many 
swell teams and homes, but you find them 
enjoying; what they have with far greater sat- 
isfaction and contentment. Reliability is the 
passport into this grade ; in the other it is 
money. Those who have made their money 
by over-reaching methods are looked upon 
with suspicion in the first named, consequently 
they are uncomfortable. To find comfort they 
must go where everything else is sunk into 
one consideration— money. The first class 
are too courteous and polite to refer to any 
thing that would be unpleasant ; mainly be- 
cause they all have unpleasant skeletons in 
their own lives and if they were to commence 



97 



g8 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

throwing: mud on each other, there would be a 
large number sunk in the mire. Keeping; up 
appearances in the last named class is the 
g;reatest strain to which man collectively has 
ever been subjected. 

The middle classes have not so many secrets 
and questions of casuistry disturbing; them ; 
nor have they such larg-e interests that some 
one else is trying; to jeopardize or mig-ht em- 
bezzle or steal ; they do not live fast enoug;h 
to keep their blood at boiling- point, and can 
see a beautiful woman or young; g;irl pass 
without wondering; if she could be seduced. 
Men who belong to the first class have so 
many demands for money growing with them 
until they never feel that they have enough, 
for as fast as means increase seductive fields of 
pleasure open before them. When men get 
well started in a career of this nature they 
never think nor have time to think of the priva- 
tions some must suffer for them to have so 
much. Sir Isaac Newton saw an apple fall to 
the ground and it occurred to him that there 
must be a reason for it ; the world was con- 
stantly revolving; why did it not go the other 
way and why do not all things fall into space? 
It occurred to him that there was a law gov- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 99 

erning- this and that it had its seat in the 
center of the earth. The working principle 
of this law is that the earth attracts to it and 
holds all lighter bodies that come within the 
circle of its influence. From this simple inci- 
dent he announced the great law of gravita- 
tion. Human nature is like this ; so long as a 
man does not violate the laws of human na- 
ture so long does he remain in perfect control 
of himself. When he begins to violate these 
laws he is taken out of his own sphere, wherein 
he could control himself, and becomes the 
creature of a law over which he has no con- 
trol. This is not true of one man or a class ; 
it is true of all, though all are not found out. 
One man may deliberately take what belongs 
to another and do it in a way that will pre- 
vent the stigma of crime. That is called 
shrewd business sense; another is found out 
and sent to the chaingang. However, when 
business men use methods that their employ- 
ees believe unjust they will have no compunc- 
tions of conscience in taking what they can 
from employer; if this way of doing things 
should spread throughout a nation there soon 
would be a nation of thieves. Manipulators 
have discovered these facts and provide against 






100 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

them by hunting; men for their positions of trust 
who are so absolutely honest that they can 
not conceive of how anyone could really be 
otherwise. If they are careful and never speak 
anything but the truth to these men and give 
them no insight into their actual dealings, they 
can keep them blind and use them to further 
their political aspirations. The best strate- 
gem they use to establish their sincerity is to 
refer to such and such a man, who everyone 
knows is perfectly honest and sincere; he 
says that all these rumors are false and he 
ought to know, for he has been with them 
for years. There are men who find nothing 
useless; they succeed with disaster, make fail- 
ure a plaything and disorganization their creed. 
This class of men, having succeeded in every- 
thing else, will at some time enter politics. 
Soon it will be heard of them that they are 
slick ones and hard to beat. What a contrast 
to the old regime! Then poverty was thought 
to be rather a recommendation and statesmen 
either were poor or became poor in the public 
service. They were working for the people, 
not themselves. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Civilization and What it is. How, by it, 

THE Rothschilds Conquered 

THE World. 

What is really meant when the term civili- 
zation is used is an increasing; ability to 
pander to and stimulate the appetites and pas- 
sions, and that the highest end of man's attain- 
ments is to revel in the enjoyments of this cor- 
poreal body. This definition strips civilization 
it of its tinsel and lifts the veil from off the 
beauteous imp, revealing- a canker in the heart. 
Civilization is supposed to convey the idea of 
amelioration and progress of the higher and 
nobler kind, but like everything its maker 
(gold) touches, it turns out to be a sham. Its 
results show undoubtedly that the mind of 
man has been enlarged in its scope, but the 
enlareement has been diverted to selfish 
greed. It will continue to progress along this 
line until the masses deliberately make up 
their minds that barbarism is the more prefer- 
able, and they determine to fall back into that 
state, sweeping the boasted civilization into 

101 



102 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

oblivion, where it will serve to mark the fall 
of an era and become known as the age that 
built its g-reatness on this or that promised 
principle. Our civilization will fall by the 
same fatal worm in the heart. We have lost 
sight of first principles and substituted money 
as sole god and ruling passion. Worshiping 
money is only another form of deifying the 
passions, which positively were the first gods 
man ever essayed to worship. There is a 
passage somewhere which says that money is 
the root of all evil; this was written two 
thousand years before Christ, and it must 
have been written by some one who knew, for 
it remains as true now as ever. Another short 
paragraph of recent utterance '' Everybody is 
accepting and acting as though the things of 
this world were the real and practical things, 
when, as a matter of fact, they are not; it is 
the things pertaining to the world to come that 
can be relied on." The expression was from 
a minister; it is seldom that bedrock truths 
are discovered and succinctly expressed by 
anyone else. God is closely connected with 
all truth, hence the world which has its own 
God is perceptibly removed from it. 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 103 

This idea suggfcsts itself: Has civilization, as 
a whole, up to this time been advantag-eous or 
of doubtful utility to the world? Heretofore, 
development has switched off on the wrong 
track at critical moments. There are two 
tracks from which civilization must choose, 
one leads to the frightful precipice of the 
gulf barbarism, and when it gets well on 
the way on this track it is like an unmanage- 
able train running down grade to where a 
bridge has fallen; no power on earth can stop 
it; it is bound to make the fatal leap. The 
other track, which is the right one, our fore- 
fathers thought, is the Republican form of 
government, but in the hands of their posterity 
our institutions have become honey-combed 
with the very evils they hoped to avoid. It is 
now only bolstered up with false promises and 
bribery — confessedly weak foundations, liable 
to give away at any moment. Already the 
people are shouting* all up and down the coun- 
try the reverberations of the coming crash. 
The Johnstown flood was confined to a narrow 
valley, but the valley of this flood will cover 
the territory of the United States. At Johns- 
town a messenger was hurried down the valley 
to warn the people by telling them that their 



104 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

g;reat dam was cracking and that they must 
flee, for their Uves ; they were disposed to be 
skeptical and wanted to argue the point and 
take their time about it; they thought that when 
they saw the first httle brooklet there would be 
time. Nothing could make them believe that 
that immense pile of solid masonry would be 
washed away at one full swoop, precipitating 
the many waters of the tremendous lake upon 
them in one mighty irresistible flood, that 
would toss their homes and themselves about as 
the sea does the wreckage of great ships and the 
pebbles on the beach. How awful they must 
have felt when they did see the advancing del- 
uge of water piled up mountain high and rolling 
down on them, cutting off every avenue of 
escape and carrying death and destruction 
with it. If they had only taken advantage of 
the warning they might have saved them- 
selves and families. If we turn our eyes to 
Cuba we can see the torrent has burst and is 
sweeping over that fair and phenomenally fer- 
tile island. We see two million human 
beings deliberately preferring death to further 
oppression and confiscation by law. We see, 
more than this, all kinds of promises are ex- 
tended to them. Spain has repeatedly tried 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 105 

to word these promises so that they appear 
to g-ive the people all they ask, but the time 
has passed when anything Spain could say 
would make the least impression on the minds 
of the natives. Habitual deception has 
reached its utmost limit and made truth in 
this direction impossible. Besides, Spain is 
not in a financial condition to carry out her 
promises. She is compelled to make the 
island pay the war expenses. She is also 
compelled to conquer the island in order that 
she may retain the collateral she has given to 
her masters, said to be the Rothschilds. If a 
condition more pitiable than Cuba is now in 
could be imagined it would make an era in 
the expansion ot the human mind. When 
Spain has finally driven out, killed and con- 
quered the people and devastated the island, 
its whole area cleared of obstruction and 
worked by pauper labor will not indemnify 
her. There can be no doubt of the abject 
condition that these people will occupy when 
that time comes. That time should never 
arrive. America ought to free Cuba; she 
owes this much to herself and the cause of 
liberty, her patron goddess. i\ll that would be 
lost would not inconvenience the few who 



io6 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

hold the collateral. The reason that we don't 
do it is because we are afraid that the Roths- 
childs have the power to hurl all Europe 
against us. The greatest advance the world 
could make would be to throw off the thral- 
dom of the money barons by organizing; an 
international court, whose duty would be to 
decide as to which would entail the least suf- 
fering, for the barons to lose, or the nation 
that is indebted to them. When Napoleon, the 
military conqueror of Europe, fell, Metternich 
conquered Europe with diplomacy, and was a 
more powerful emperor, some thought, than 
Napoleon. Neither of these mighty men sub- 
dued the whole planet. That honor was left 
for the last great conquerors, the Rothschilds, 
who have not only conquered the whole of 
Europe, but all the islands of the sea. When 
the coalition is completed between the ruling 
element here (for America is now lying 
supinely at the feet of the same power) these 
last-named monarchs can boast that the 
known world will be theirs. With it all they will 
have no more satisfaction than they have now; 
they will, like Alexander, only in a far deeper 
and more terrible sense, weep because there are 
no more worlds to conquer. They probably 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 107 

will then turn their attention to seeing: how 
low they can reduce the inhabitants of 
the g:lobe. Ah! those who are hunting: 
for an opening- to slip in the wedge of 
prejudice and opposition will say they perceiv^e 
that that impractical thing, an ideal, is what 
the writer is aiming it. Suppose the author 
g-rants this is true, and maintains that the pur- 
suit of the ideal is the pursuit of reality and 
truth; since when has it become a crime to 
pursue and hold in high esteem virtue and 
honor ? Does the opposition admit that ma- 
terial or financial success must be sought 
through the charnel house of deceptive prin- 
ciples? If so, that explains exactly where civili- 
zation receives its fatal stab. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Primary Laws Are Simple, but Grow 
Complex with Startling Rapidity. 

The unsatisfying- morbid condition that 
civiUzation reaches through pandering to ex- 
cess may be easily understood by individuals 
if they will refer to times when their system 
was out of order and they could digest noth- 
ing ; they could eat any amount and it would 
neither give them strength nor assuage their 
hunger ; they could think of nothing that they 
could eat that would help them and yet they 
would crave everything they saw fat to eat. 
If they happened to think of anything they 
wanted besides food they were ready to 
cry like a child if they could not get it. Our 
best physicians, after having tried every 
complex method, have decided that the only 
remedy is to go back to first principles of 
diet, prohibit all modern dishes and condi- 
ments. Natural food in its most simple form 
is the best and the patients must use self-con- 
trol ; if they do not the worst is predicted. 
This prescription will cure the disease of the 
present civilization. 



108 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 109 

Civilizations start out with simple laws ; 
barbarians are simple in their habits, as the 
country is undeveloped there is abundance for 
all, but, after a time, it is discovered that some 
are taking; advanta§:e of the letter of the law 
and are becoming; obnoxious in their ag;gres- 
sions. The people rig;htly conclude that the 
best thing; to do is to rise up and stop this at 
once by revising" the laws. For perhaps a long-er 
time all goes well ag"ain ; those who received 
the first check have g-rown more weary ; they 
have now found out that any advantag;es that 
their superior wealth gives them must be hid 
from the people, all their selfish activities must 
be pursued under the hyperbolical guise of the 
people's welfare. This condition obtains un- 
til the people begin to feel, not see, its decided 
effects ; with diligent search they yet again 
unearth the trouble and try to apply the law. 
The ruling classes then lift themselves up to 
the highest pinnacle of caution; their plans for 
deception are laid with the most subtle care ; 
they begin to think of what kinds of law the 
people will demand in the different directions 
when the people suspect them ; they wTite the 
law and prepare the people for its reception 
and the executive departments for its interpre- 



no 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 



tation. This is their limit ; they have shut 
off all possible ways for the people finding 
them out. Appeal on top of appeal only con- 
firms the previous verdict. The people be- 
come Hke hunted animals pressed hard and no 
cover in sight. They try everything and every- 
thing fails. M any become desperate and des- 
pondent over thinking the trouble must be 
their innate worthlessness and kill themselves. 
Their darkest moment of desperation is when 
they turn loose reason and turn on their pur- 
suers, blindly crushing them because of their 
own misery. This moment is the dawn of a 
new day ; it is the black cloud that conceals 
the silver lining. When king or class rules 
only for selfish ends, they purloin their own 
bravery and manhood. They know how to 
put up a big bluff, and are terrible enough 
when let alone, but genuine opposition scares 
them; they always expect it, but depend 
on their lynx eyes to warn them in time 
to crush. They are on the watch like the 
eternal vigilance which is said to be the price 
of liberty. They alone carry out this idea ; 
instead of being used as a principle of liberty it 
has been an important factor in forging the 
chains of oppression and slavery. Liberty 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. hi 

means security and rest, hence it is not in 
sympathy with the principle said to be neces- 
sary to preserve it, but the principle is in per- 
fect concord with plutocracy ; by perfectly 
understanding its workings plutocracy estab- 
hshes itself. If we revert back to the present 
hypothesis that business principles should be 
given the right of way, we can consistently 
and with justice say that the business that 
liberty should first attend to is to wrest this 
principle from the hands of plutocracy and 
hold it by might. Plutocracy would enjoy the 
little coup and laugh over the clever corner it 
had made in the market. Business principles 
are alright so long as monopoly has the sole 
right to use them. Introduce them where they 
will oppose monopoly, and they are all wrong 
and fanatical. 

Plutocracy knows its inherent weakness; it is 
common with the weakness of monarchical 
o-overnments. It realizes that when opposition 
comes it must be checked at once, if at all; 
therefore, as soon as it shows its head, plutoc- 
racy is ready to throw itself upon it with an 
irresistible fury while the opposition is weaker 
than itself. This is the incentive that keeps 
plutocracy and monarchies perfectly organized 



112 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

and armed cap-a-pie, ready to throw their full 
strength into the field of battle at a moment's 
notice. Liberty is a dangerous foe and re- 
quires eternal vig:ilance to keep it down. This 
chapter may be appropriately closed by saying; 
that civilization comes dangerously near be- 
ing the foe of liberty. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

How Civilization Cuts off Competition 
AND Forges the Manacles of Servi- 
tude AND Dependence. The 
Evil of Small Organi- 
zations. 

Liberty has been denuded of or§;anization, 
therefore it must have a starting; point. Plu- 
tocracy has conquered the g:reat parties; which 
has driven hberty to org:anizing- small coteries 
with the hope of uniting; them later on. When 
an org-anization has, as a reason for its exist- 
ence, the avowed intention of discussing; and 
studying- the causes under which liberty is 
groaning;, plutocracy immediately takes frig-ht 
and takes up arms against it. They first send 
in their spies, who put them in possession of 
the facts. They then teach their spies how to 
talk and appear as enthusiastic as the best of 
Liberty's subjects; soon they are accepted as 
leaders and members of promise. They make 
long speeches on the good of the order and are 
reckless in the use of maledictions and curses 
hurled against the common enemy. While the 

8 113 



114 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

honest members are earnestly trying: to master 
the rudiments of the order the spies are pre- 
paring- to direct its course and prophesy the 
glorious results to be won. They search out 
those who are popular that they can mould to 
their wills and begin to secretly discuss the 
side the organization will take in politics and 
who to select for the offices the organization 
has a right to demand in return for its solid 
vote. Before they mention these things to 
the members of the organization generally, 
they have been required in as binding oaths 
as can be framed with words to swear that 
all will vote the way the majority says vote, 
and nothing is permitted to pass the organiza- 
tion that has not first passed through the 
hands of this clique. When this stage is 
reached the original principles of the order 
are quietly shelved. They are divorced for 
the time being in favor of the hope of winning 
success for their candidates. The members who 
do not belong to the inner ring soon learn that 
the public know^s more about the order than 
they do. The inner ring has been trading off 
the vote of the order to outsiders, but on the 
floor of the order they are loud in their de- 
nunciation of the traitors who have been giv- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 115 

ing- the order away. Pretty soon everything; 
the most secret is pubhshed in the papers and 
the order denounced as a pernicious secret or- 
ganization whose sole purpose is to put incom- 
petent men in office. If the order does not 
fail at once the only hope it can still have of 
success is to unite its remaining; scattered 
forces with those who the org;anization was 
formed to defeat. This brings the order into 
disg;race with all parties and kills it never to 
rise again; liberty has to take a new start. 
When this happens plutocracy takes advan- 
tage of the occasion to preach the masses a 
wholesome sermon. It tells farmers to g;o back 
to their plows and let politics alone; it says to 
mechanics that politics are not in their class, 
that they must g;o back to their saw and ham- 
mer, and that if they are g;ood and will give 
no more trouble they will graciously be paid 
enough for bare subsistence. The masses can 
only bare their necks for the feet of 
their masters and skulk off, but they intensely 
feel that it is all terribly wrong- and oppres- 
sive and they say in their hearts what they 
will do if the time does come when they can 
pay back with the same coin. By attacking- 
each small organization this way civilization, 



ii6 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

or plutocracy, can prevent them from uniting- 
and becoming; dangerous. The only way to 
meet the situation is to have open organiza- 
tions, keeping strict watch over those who be- 
come members. Incompatibles could even be 
allowed to sit with them, but not to talk unless 
invited. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

How Civilization Uses Anarchy and 

Free-love Scares. Who the 

Real Anarchists Are. 

When liberty's feeble beg-innin§:s are being: 
torn down, the destruction is accompanied 
with a venomous note of dissension, that is 
hissed from mouth to mouth about the 
cursed anarchist and free-love disciples and 
their visionary paternal demands. No one 
can tell just where it comes from, as no class 
is bold enoug:h to father it; however, this is 
assured, it is inspired by those whose inter- 
est it will serve, and it is disseminated by their 
loud-ton^ued hounds and parasites, those they 
have reduced to this class of work as the only 
means of livelihood that saves them from 
be§:g:in§: and starving-. If there are anarchists 
in this country they are most emphatically not 
to be found among the reformers who beg; 
and plead for reforms by ballot; the chief 
trouble that reformers have to overcome is 
their humility. They try and try ag:ain, hop- 
ing" at every election to avoid the snares that 

117 



ii8 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

defeated them in the one before, but do as 
they will, they are no match for those first on 
the field and who have been laying; for them 
with their g:uns loaded down to the muzzle, 
whose ammunition is composed of tricks and 
fraud and hate and every conceivable thing 
that mig:ht prove useful to them. 

Honesty can not cope with abandoned sys- 
tem; honesty tries to give credit where credit 
is due, while system's plan of operation is to 
give discredit where credit is due and claim 
the credit. This makes a very unequal race, 
and it is fortunate that it can be rectified by a 
simple remedy. Go back to the logical source 
of true information, viz., past lives, that will 
show what inspires their utterances and actions. 
If their teachings and surroundings have been 
such that they can not, in reason, be in sympa- 
thy with reform they must be let severely alone. 
As a rule, the more a man swears that such 
surroundings are deceiving the more surely he 
had better be let alone. Honest men do not 
deign to reply to groundless and base suspi- 
cions; they quietly drop out of the stink; they 
have followed this policy so persistently until 
one can say with approximate truth that there 
are no such men in public life to-day. Our 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 119 

public men are perfectly honest, according; to 
the standard of nineteenth century civilization; 
it is an earlier variety that is spoken of. If 
there are men in office whose idea of honesty 
is after the earlier kind they usually have not 
sufficient political acumen to tell what is going- 
on rig:ht under their noses. Having; only the 
people's g:ood at heart, and believing; the same 
of others, they easily become dupes to be 
moulded at will. Their special use is to intro- 
duce obnoxious measures which they have 
been persuaded were the best for the people. 
The people, believing- in their honesty, accept 
the laws. This class of men make splendid 
public servants when surrounded by their 
kind, but are dang;erous when not so sur- 
rounded. The best laws that could be made 
would not come from men with g^reat learning; 
and wide experience; they could come only 
from men with sound, strong; minds with little 
or no experience with anything; but rig;ht. 
This is why woman's intuition is said to be 
nearer rig-ht than man's judg'ment; she is un- 
acquainted with wrong;. 

If the imputation of anarchy could be ac- 
credited to the proper source the situation 
would be g;reatly simplified. If, as has been 



120 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

said, the reformers are not g:uilty of it, those 
who so vehemently denounce them as being; 
so, must, themselves, be the anarchists. The 
proofs of this lie in these facts; they are 
vehement and ready to bring; any kind of 
accusation and violently mag;nify and resent 
any opposition to divert public opinion; they 
hire the lowest class to fill up on mean whis- 
key and g;o out hunting; for a fig;ht, so that 
they can accuse the reformers of it and point 
the fing;er of scorn at them and say 'There 
are your reformers drunk and fig;hting; — fit for 
office, aren't they." 

The lowest and hig;hest classes have a firm 
bond of union between them; many of the 
crimes that the hig;hest demand are com- 
mitted from choice by the lowest. The hig;hest 
must have them done, but can't do them them- 
selves, so they g'O to those who like to commit 
them. Often we see the very best lawyers 
defending- the lowest vag;abonds who haven't 
a cent of money, and carrying; the cases into 
the most expensive courts. Philanthropy is 
sug-g;ested and bandied from mouth to mouth, 
and in the end accepted as sufficiently explan- 
atory of said actions. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Organizations of all Kinds Become Com- 
pulsory. The Folly of Strikes. 

Civilization takes man out of his primitive 
condition by producing- many articles useful to 
him from the raw materials nature so gener- 
ously provides. All of our trades are the chil- 
dren of the great parents, civilization and 
concentration of money. Of the two civiliza- 
tion is not the leader. Money seeking for 
ways to make more money is the forerunner. 
The results of the activity of money seeking;, 
as it always does, some way to hide its tracks, 
assumes the euphonious appellation of civiliza- 
tion. When the natural deposits and resources 
have been developed to where there are only 
small returns, money turns its attention to ac- 
quiring the nation's properties and the reduc- 
tion of the wages of labor. Labor, when it 
begins to perceptibly feel that the normal 
principle of money, rapaciousness, has been di- 
rected towards it, sees the necessity of self-pro- 
tection, and is limited to one method, organiza- 
tion, both political and industrial. Heretofore 

121 



122 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

laboring; people have tried the industrial union 
to resist the encroachments; this plan is oper- 
ated upon the idea that idleness will coerce 
capital, the loss of the income being; more 
than its greedy soul will bear. This is a great 
mistake. However, it will coerce small con- 
cerns where capital is limited and debt press- 
ing-; when it comes to larg;e concerns where 
many are interested it not only does no g;ood 
but does positive harm; it furnishes excuses 
for not paying; dividends and, if they see fit, 
for failure, which results in crushing- out the 
small fry, who had sympathy for labor and 
were willing; to see it paid a fair price. Be- 
sides, it makes labor more destitute^ the very 
condition that monopolies feed and g;row fat 
on. The laborer himself sells what little he 
has to live on; the small merchant, depending; 
on labor, g;oes under; the larg;er merchants, 
who are the creditors of the smaller, either go 
under or are forced to borrow at a high rate of 
interest. Capital need not be idle, and will not 
he so long as there is an aching void for the 
want of it; while its machinery may be unpro- 
ductive, lying idle, it will have new fields 
opened up to operate in. 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 123 

There is another serious objection to strikes. 
All large plants that have proven successful 
never retain any of the money of the capital- 
ists who organized and put them in operation, 
though they do retain the same management. 
They are not successful unless the stock can 
be watered enough for them to get their mon- 
ey back and have their stock free. This plan 
of watering stock has tw^o results, it gives 
the capitalist his money back to form new 
companies with and it reduces the earnings to 
reasonable interest ; in addition to this it 
makes more people interested in the corpora- 
tion's success, and in stringent times they can 
claim to be running for pure philanthropy's 
sake. This again illustrates our greatest 
error. This kind of thing goes on unchecked, 
having perfect freedom. All kinds of promi- 
ses may be made and broken and the company 
or its agents are never called to the bar of 
justice. Every year there are thousands of 
these companies formed, seeking investors, 
promising them two or three for one and 
actually demonstrating that their promises are 
founded on perfect business principles ; to 
prove this the solicitors are furnished with 
a list of the very best men in town who 



124 OoRS IS THE Rule of Dead Men. 

have taken stock and they show you the hst. 
These men have traded their names and in- 
fluence on the assurance that they would get 
the first pickings from the spoils. Organiza- 
tion has become popular ; the people have 
concluded that, as the moneyed men are organ- 
ized, they can pool their own interests and 
make it profitable. Moneyed men, recognizing 
the popularity of the principle, proceed to work 
through it to catch the people where they are 
weak. The weak spot of the people is that 
which they have faith in. Before their sus- 
picions are aroused their earnings are gone- 
gone to swell the pile of those who have 
enough and to spare. Organizations that 
would be of real value are unscrupulously dis- 
organized, while those that prey upon the peo- 
ple run loose. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Organization of the People Will Be 

Successful if Proper Precautions 

Are Taken to Prevent 

Manipulation. 

The idea has almost passed into a maxim 
that the masses can not be org;anized — that 
they are helpless in meeting emergencies, and 
will always remain so. This position is un- 
tenable because they have never been organ- 
ized upon the proper basis; in the past they 
have directed their energy in the wrong direc- 
tion, viz., in strikes. They have depended on 
bringing want to those above it. They must 
radically change this plan and concentrate all 
their energy and hopes on the ballot. Let all 
their industrial organizations have an open 
and avowed political significance as well as 
industrial benefit; what is said and done in 
them concerning politics they must not hesitate 
to tell openly, but they must keep a close watch 
on disorganizers and place hunters and keep 
them out; this will be easily done by the secret 
fraternal section. If they will do this they 

125 



126 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

will have a splendid chance for free discussions 
among- friends and come to definite con- 
clusions, and public comment will keep them 
from going- far wrong. Agitation is healthy, 
secretiveness is dangerous and has been 
proven impossible; besides, if any org:aniza- 
tion is animated by loyal endeavors, it creates 
suspicion by trying to keep them secret. If 
said organization hopes that the candidates 
they favor will be entrusted with the man- 
agement of the business of the people it has 
no right to keep secrets from the people per- 
taining to their business; no other employer 
would tolerate such a thing". It is unbusiness- 
like in the extreme. 

Industrial organizations should be united by 
their common interests in the economy of g-ov- 
ernment into one g:reat political party. This 
does not mean that they are to select men 
from their own ranks to fill the majority of 
the legislative and executive offices, for capital 
and labor are now fretted with each other; 
the best plan under the circumstances is to 
select men who will have as little prejudice as 
possible; this will prevent extremes. There 
are a vast number of men between the em- 
ployer and employee; from them the major- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 127 

ity of officers should come. To illustrate, if 
men with large property holdin§;s are elected 
to the alderman's board of a city they will 
divide the appropriations for improvements 
so that their individual properties will be 
benefited, and the places where work is actu- 
ally and urgently needed will be neglected. 
On the other hand, if men without large pos- 
sessions in real estate are elected, they wall 
place the city's money where it will do the 
most good; they have no personal interest to 
influence them. Our present system of under- 
hand, wire-pulling secret organizations, cliques 
and rings has been exhaustively tried and 
found to be in favor of the ring every time. 
This of itself could bring this land of plenty to 
its present conditions of congestion and want. 
How can the people who wish to remove these 
troubles hope to succeed with this system. If 
they succeed in electing their man with it 
they find out very shortly afterwards that 
they have made of him the very kind of 
man they were trying to defeat. When an 
honest man decides that he is justifiable in 
stooping to debasing practices to conquer he 
will have to go only a little farther to convince 
himself that he had better make himself solid 



128 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

and feather his nest while he can, and he is sure 
to do this if he sees the opportunity coming; 
his way. Such chances do not come of their 
own accord ; they are sent and the senders 
always know how to spread the net for this 
class of officers. This whole situation can 
be summed up by saying, the man who is 
elected on the plan of the enemy will, by the 
time he is elected, belong- to the enemy. We 
have had example after example of this kind ; 
labor elects its man and wakes up too late to 
the fact that they have found defeat in success. 
Political debts are paid only to those who put 
up. Campaign promises are leg:itimate strat- 

eg:y. 
Those who are known to be the center 

around which any tang;ible influence revolves, 

find themselves in clover before the election. 

They are invited out to special meeting's, 

wined, dined and flattered until any old 

promise will do them ; they are made to feel 

that they will have the eternal g;ratitude and 

help of the men who ask them for the offices. 

If they are not more than mortal they will see 

position and riches flowing; into their laps 

almost without an effort on their part. They 

are only to do what they can do with a word 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 129 

or two spoken in the candidate's favor. Go to 
to one of them a few months after election and 
ask why he is not enjoying; his part of the 
spoils ; he will smile and answer, "Oh, I never 
paid any attention to all that talk ; I knew why 
they wanted my help, which they §:ot, but it has 
done one thing; — it has taug;ht me a lesson." 
Yes, and a severe one — it has cost him the es- 
teem in which he was held. When the time 
rolls around for another election some one 
else will hold his place in the org-anization — 
some man who can not profit by his lesson, 
but will become a victim to the same tactics. 

These men should not be blamed for the 
part they played ; anyone would do the same; 
human nature is not strong-er than human na- 
ture. There should be a protection for them. 
A man who has been treated this way should 
^o back to those who trust him and frankly 
tell them all that had been said and done, be- 
ing- careful to tell it all, and ask the advice of 
his friends and of his party and invite debate 
and criticism ; he would then be placed on 
his guard ; his cause would be saved and he 
would be saved. It would also prevent those 
Avho were trying to stultify him from succeed- 
ing in their selfish designs. 



130 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

Secrecy in political organizations will not 
do. If this effort could so impress these 
points on the minds of the masses that it 
would pass into practice its author would be 
abundantly paid for the labor it represents. 
Should the principles herein described be ac- 
cepted and acted upon it would have this 
wholesome effect— it would show the powers 
that be that their tactics are either understood 
or they had forced these conclusions them- 
selves. This would cause them immediately 
to set to work to prove that not a word of it 
was so ; they would not only do for a time all 
that was promised, but would hunt up ways 
to do more. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

How Monopolists Cleverly Manage to 
Take Advantage of Sacred Things. 

It has been discussed at some length that 
men should not be chosen solely upon the 
ground of the amount of money they will 
spend to be elected, but there were not quite 
such good surroundings to impress it ; the 
spending of money should be faithfully and 
firmly stopped, as it corrupts both the buyer 
and seller and renders both unfit for the posi- 
tion of trust to which they aspire. It does 
more ; it makes office-holding a speculative 
position instead of one of trust. It fosters the 
present corrupt policy of machine men ; mon- 
ey is the power of the machine to-day, in lieu 
of principles based upon the people's welfare. 
It makes office-holding a splendid fountain 
for the unscrupulous money shark to wash his 
filthy linen — linen filled with stealings from 
the widows and orphans. 

By dint of persistent repetition — no lesser 
man than Napoleon said that repetition is the 
only serious figure in rhetoric — the people 

131 



132 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

have come to believe that only men who have 
made money and been successful in private 
Hfe are ehgible to hold office. If we subject 
this axiom to even casual scrutiny we find it 
had its origin in the breast of those who had 
spent their earlier lives in amassing; money- 
men who were formerly known as the hardest 
kind of taskmasters and who could drive the 
shrewdest barg:ains, men in whose hands 
everything; turned to gold. They have suc- 
ceeded also in having; the idea fasten itself on 
the popular mind that this kind of manipula- 
tion required and demonstrated sound judg- 
ment and ability far above the average, when, 
in reality, it is the only unanswerable argument 
that shows the reverse to be the case. Before 
the era of the supremacy of business princi- 
ples; when our statesmen were patriots, it was 
equally well established that statesmen were 
not money-making men ; they had neither the 
time nor the inclination to scheme and ponder 
over how they would buy up certain proper- 
ties by shrewd practices and, being unacquain- 
ted with the inside letting of contracts, and 
the present method of going to certain bidders 
and have them put on a few additional thous- 
ands for them, provided they got the 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 133 

contract, they were unable to turn a civilized 
honest penny in office. They never learned 
how to represent an inferior man by asking- 
him to buy a pull with the people's money. 
Some of the greatest men that this country 
has produced have been so poor that purses 
have been made up to aid them. In the plan 
to keep living men from guiding the helm of 
state, which is now so popular, this fact is 
made exceedingly plain. Thomas Jefferson's 
name is used to conjure with ; all new princi- 
ples must be toned down to the times when he 
was trying to guide the footsteps of an infant 
nation. Thomas Jefferson was supported by 
the people, who still love and revere him for 
the valuable services he rendered the country. 
If this view was allowed to prevail, the men 
who achieve fortune in early life would con- 
tinue to devote their time to money-grabbing 
and leave the law-making power in the hands 
it ought to be in. Instead of this, the mon- 
eyed men have reduced the people to about 
as low an ebb as they will stand ; this forces 
them to a certain extent into seeking other 
game, and, as there is no real check on them 
in governmental positions and the amount 
of money there is practically unlimited, they 



134 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

seize on them with avidity and hold on with a 
death §:rip. This is not meant for fig;urative 
language ; it is greatly to be feared that 
death alone will loosen the grip, but that it 
will be loosened there is not the shadow of a 
doubt. Obstruction has never been known to 
divert a just and natural law from its unalter- 
able channel. 

The art of prognosticating has thrown a 
wreath of mystery about the ability of mon- 
opolists. Prophesying along the line of any 
law that is known to man is comparatively 
easy and, with money to ease over the hard 
places, it is sure. Hundreds of men who have 
learned to look for what capitalists want can 
foretell events, but this is not foretelling by in- 
tuition without volition; it is nothing more 
than deliberate calculation7 augmented by the 
use of money. When a successful man takes 
time from the profound absorption of business 
to draw a long breath and survey the political 
field he is very apt to be somewhat advanced 
in life and have possessions sufficiently large 
for the operation of the laws to perceptibly 
effect them. This man does not consider his 
income when he thinks of taxes; if he could he 
would make all men pay the same amount, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 135 

taking no account of property, and then he 
says to himself: "I don't Hke the scowls and 
hatred of those I have wrong^ed. I am willing" 
to do something and spend some money if I can 
win back lost respect and esteem and if I suc- 
ceed I will have the laws changed so that they 
will reimburse me." The first step he takes 
toward carrying out his plans is to quietly send 
some alms to the needy and begins to g'ive to 
benevolent causes. Pretty soon a long piece 
appears in the paper telling of his particularly 
tender heart and his quiet charity done with- 
out the thought of anyone ever finding it out, 
and is done also when there is not a thought of 
politics. The election that he expects to win is 
some two or three years off; he is just lay- 
ing the corner-stone. By the time he is elected 
he hardly knows himself, he feels so happy 
over the esteem of the people and for a short 
time he wishes that he did and had always de- 
served it. But the habits of a lifetime are not 
changed in amoment ; it is a flash from heaven 
thrown across his path, but it fades and he 
again is the creature of his own rigid training 
and discipline. If the good book is true no man 
who knows that he has in his possession and 
holds unjustly and falsely the property of 



136 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

another can chang:e without making restitution 
in some way. Moneyed men try to make resti- 
tution by foundine: hospitals and colleg:es and 
parks, and so on. Who could hold money 
that sue:g:ests the agony and the misery that 
follows in the wake of privation, destitution, 
starvation and death without hardening and 
steeling one's heart to the task every time the 
thought flashed through the mind, '*it is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
than for a rich man to go to heaven." Don't 
think it is impossible to imagine how this 
might be so. To-day they have got the explan- 
ation of that needle changed to mean a low 
gate in a wall. Such is life; the best of men will 
bring things around to their desires if they 
keep tampering with them. 

Small organizations and secret organizations 
bring votes together in blocks where they can 
be manipulated. You hear men going about 
saying "fifteen organized men can do anything 
they like;" all you have got to do is to stick. 
Oh, yes, you must be ruled by the majority 
or out you must and ought to go. 
Everybody agrees to be ruled by the majority 
and swears he is going to stick and work 
through thick and thin. Plans are formulated, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 137 

discussed and adopted. Every member has 
been sworn and resworn and finally the time 
to select the candidate who can win comes. 
Now you begfin to see why so much stress 
was laid on the rule of the majority and why 
you had been sworn so much; you hear the 
names of the very men you went in there to 
defeat whispered around coupled with the only 
chance to succeed. To your utter astonish- 
ment the organization settles either on those 
men or the ones they can use. Honest men 
are astounded and quit, but the leaders of this 
method know where they are benefited and 
next year they are ready for a new crowd who 
don't understand the trick. Many of these or- 
g-anizations are sworn to exclude financiers 
when in reality they are the creatures of finan- 
ciers; the org-anizer is regularly in their pay 
and very often they pay the bills of the order. 
There is an acknowledged fact that speaks 
volumes when looked at right ; anyone who 
is interested in politics will tell you that if the 
dominating force in politics get hold of the 
plans of those who declare that reforms are 
urgently needed and that their claims upon 
the suffrage of the people is based upon the 
faithful performance of promises in this re- 



138 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

spect, the said dominating; force will jump 
on them with both feet and show up enoug:h 
that is rotten and contemptible to make the 
reformers contemptible in the eyes of the pub- 
lic. Reformers never think of corruption 
themselves ; they feel that the people should 
be sick of that, hence honest endeavor must 
suffer the obloquy that should be the lot of 
those it is contending with. This may be ex- 
pressed by saying; that truth crushed down 
sinks to rise no more. Those who are corrupt 
understand how to make others seem so. 
They are skilled in that particular branch. 
Reformers, knowing; their own honesty of pur- 
pose, become digusted and forswear politics 
because they are forced to suspect the men 
they relied on. The idea that truth crushed 
to earth will rise ag-ain is used to prove that 
there was no truth in the cry for reform. 
There is no such thing; as truth in politics to- 
day unless falsehood has usurped the throne 
of truth until custom makes it legitimate, and 
falsehood has become truth. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Young Men in Politics. 

The position of young" men in politics is 
subject to extreme changes if the knowing and 
successful clique wish to use them. This is 
declared to be a day of young men ; if the 
promiscuous public settle on one he is sure to 
have been so honest in the old-time way that 
he is declared to be only a beardless boy 
totally devoid of experience. The experience 
that he has had may have been great, but it 
is not the right kind because it does not accord 
with the right views. Put an organized 
crowd persistently to stating a given thing to 
be facts against a crowd not so well organized 
stating that it is not and the best organized 
crowd will win ; absolute fact plays almost 
no part in the contest. In this way public 
opinion can be injected with any principle, 
The results of the principle need not be con- 
sidered — if they happen to be disastrous to 
some it will be correspondingly beneficial to 
others. All that will then need be done will 
be to inject the public with the idea that the 

139 



140 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

principle was not properly understood and 
applied by those who failed. Public clamor 
will be appeased and the fallen ones rolled in- 
to oblivion. The gymnastics of competency 
describes a similar course ; there are often men 
who seem to inspire the respect and confidence 
of the people and when a special effort is to be 
made these men are selected color-bearers and 
they make formidable opponents. Usually, 
the ao-e of the color-bearer and surrounding; cir- 
cumstances rules the age question out as the 
leading; proof of incompetency. The political 
dice-box is g;iven a tumble and comes up pure 
incompetency. The best authorities beg;in to 
say that times and undertaking;s like the pres- 
ent make it imperative that competent men be 
selected, that experimenting; won't do— what 
is done must be beyond question. They also 
say that at some future time they will be delight- 
ed to see the gentleman honored. The question 
of right or which is right is lost in the effort 
to succeed. As has been before said, a thought 
of admitting the right when it is promulgated 
does not occur to the minds of either side, as 
politics go now; it only excites the opposing 
sides to greater attempts to find something that 
will meet or answer it. Reformers have de- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 141 

scended to the level of fig-htin^ the devil with 
fire and beheve that the end justifies the means; 
they forg"et that the fire that will consume them 
is only the natural element of the arch enemy. 
When this stage in municipal, but more espe- 
cially national, affairs is reached it marks the 
last stage before armed rebellion. When a 
people is forced to acknowledge their utter help- 
lessness and inability to cope with evils in 
every possible way short of war, they then be- 
gin to count numbers and if they find that there 
are enough to crush out the evil the idea of force 
takes firm hold of their minds as the last re- 
sort. It takes more or less time to fully dom- 
inate the mind and heart. But when the ques- 
tion begins to unfold itself this way every 
movement of the opposition will be construed 
so that it hastens matters.* 

History clearly establishes that the life of a 
man will show^ the ruling element in his life by 
the time he is thirty years of age. and often 
much younger. Innumerable cases could be 
cited showing the age when the master minds 



*There may be an effort made to show that this production will put 
these thoughts in the minds of the people, therefore the book is devilish. 
The expressions of all thinking men show what it contains is already in 
the hearts of the people and is fast finding its way to the surface, hence 
this book should be received and acted on as a plain, timely warning. 
If the author is right he is not deserving of censure. 



142 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

of any g:iven century revealed themselves 
to the world and it is safe to say that the 
friends, at least, of all who have attained great 
prominence knew that it was in them before 
they were thirty. But when such minds have 
to battle with the environments of to-day, 
they never reach the public ear until they have 
satisfactorily forsworn their innate convictions 
and adopted the behests of their masters. If 
they refuse to do this they sink, mute, ing:lori- 
ous Miltons, to the grave. Contumely and ig- 
nominy can only follow in the wake of the 
nation that stifles all the noble and holy emo- 
tions of its people. Our place in progressive 
history a hundred years hence will be a blank. 
Some wise man has said that nations that 
have no history are happy nations. With this 
we bee to differ ; nations who are happy fur- 
nish a simple but intensely interesting history. 
After Time's mellowing influence has rolled 
over it readers feel while perusing their pasto- 
rals like they are wandering through the 
regions of romance and x^rcadia to the de- 
lectable fields of Elysium. No history inspires 
men to do or die like this. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

When Men Reach Their Permanent Rut 
AND Become Obstructions. 

Men who have lived to forty have fixed the 
rut in which their Hves will run ; these ruts 
may be §;reatly widened and polished, but will 
hardly turn into others other than to accom- 
plish specific ends. Therefore, when reforms 
are needed such men are always anta§:onistic 
to them unless they belong- in their rut. 
Moreover, men who have succeeded can not 
see the need of reform ; on the other hand re- 
form can not come without annoyance to them. 
The least trouble that can accrue will be a 
change in business system and since they are 
fixed in that as well, it can but worry them 
greatly. The only safe way to avoid such 
results is for this class of men to promise the 
reforms and by unscrupulous political methods, 
provided they are needed, obtain the office. 
They can then place obstructions in the way 
of reform until they are ready for it or until it 
w411 no long-er be a reform, or at best a rene- 
gade bastard article. Following; up this prin- 

143 



144 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

ciple we find that there are older men who 
would be perfectly in line with the demand for 
reform. Doubtless their riper judg:ment would 
make them the more useful and conservative, 
barring; the vital characteristics they have lost 
which are specially needed, viz., their enthusi- 
asm, their self-confidence, and the hope that 
the people will see and accept what is offered 
them. One defeat may not hurt much, but 
continual defeat stamps out courage and 
throws personal mag;netism into a state of leth- 
arg-y. Without these characteristics success 
will be dangerously hampered. 

While a country is being sunk in a shaft of 
misery it will pass through strata or degrees, 
underneath each of which is sure to spring up 
a new and fresh fountain of hope ; an under- 
standing of their troubles flashes into the 
souls of the people and they catch a glimpse of 
a silver lining behind the threatening clouds. 
Renewed interest in their affairs asserts itself. 
The course upward of the fountain seems un- 
obstructed ; the light of prosperity, the goal of 
their desire, is almost within their grasp. The 
people go singing to their work and toil with 
a hearty good-will. All the promises have a 
ring of truth and fairness about them long un- 



OuKS IS THE Rule of Dead I\Ien. 145 

known. For a time this artificial spurt does 
bring; the semblance of prosperity and if it 
were not for the obstructionist who tolls them 
on and on with promises until this new happi- 
ness fades and g-ives way to despair, every- 
thing would terminate as the heart of the na- 
tion prayed for. If a result like this should 
ever by the merest chance be reached it mig:ht 
then be said that the voice of the people w^as 
the voice of God. 

The tyrant obstruction is the Xemesis of 
hope because it is a principle without a soul. 
Capital is a principle without a soul ; the laws 
g-overning" corporations and trusts show it to 
be so. The good of man is not considered in 
the managing" of trusts, the most rigid system 
that protects capital takes precedence. In the 
domain of reason and thought there could not 
be found a more ruthless or irresistible tyrant. 
Something without a soul, incapable of being 
touched by human woe and without the fear 
of death. The tyrants of history are but 
weaklings compared to it. There are men who 
have the temerity to say that this monster has 
been seen in America ; they proclaim from 
platform and forum that he has already con- 
quered the strong arm of the republic and that 

10 



146 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

a republican form of government is too weak 
to resist him. This will be g-ranted when it is 
shown that the law-making power has passed 
into his hands and the people have capitulated 
and given up trying to wrest the law- 
making power from him — to hold him in check 
with it. This must be done ; it is the only 
way whereby a republican form of government 
can prove a permanent success. If it fails at 
this crisis it will be the most complete failure 
ever known to any form of government and 
will measure a commensurately lower depth of 
misery. These are no hair-brained inflamma- 
tory mouthings ; they are legitimate conclu- 
sions from unimpassioned logical reasoning, 
A cause that is losing because all known argu- 
ments have become old, uninteresting and 
virtually obsolete needs hew life, new enthu- 
siasm, new inventive faculty, new blood. This 
can come from only one source and that is 
young men. They should not, of course, be 
selected entirely— they need balance wheels in 
age and experience, but they will make com- 
manders for the field of battle. Back them 
up with a staff of wisdom and you will have 
your forces panoplied in their best array. 
Young men should be placed largely in legis- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 147 

lative bodies with older heads in the executive 
chairs. The axiom before quoted which says 
that this is a day of young men should be ac- 
cepted and not victimized by obstruction. A 
man §:ets more in his mind than he can de- 
velop by the time he is forty-five ; this has 
been recog-nized in a proverb which says you 
can not teach old dog:s new tricks. Axioms 
or proverbs serve to create mystery; different 
views and systems produce proverbs irrecon- 
cilable with each other; when an understand- 
ing- is attempted, it is answered with a proverb 
for short and is a form of superstition. One 
who is superstitiously inclined accepts the idea 
that it is so because it has been so long- ac- 
cepted. It is safe to say then that all secular 
proverbs are lies, useful for playing upon the 
credulity and superstition of the people. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The Overweening Desire to Hold 

Office. 

A very cog"ent line of argument frequently 
resorted to and which is indigenous in the 
breast of those who feel the laws too tightly 
already is that which is raised over the buzzing 
of the political bee or the overweening desire 
for office-holding. If a young man espouses 
a cause and uses skill and force in laying siege 
to public approval, he is met by an undercur- 
rent of oaths such as, "I swear he is the 
craziest man to hold office I ever saw ; what 
does he want to do ?" 'There must be some ax 
to grind" ; "Somebody must be putting up a pile 
of money"; "He's crazy — full of wild vision- 
ary schemes," and plenty more of the same 
kind of billingsgate. This line is forced by 
two facts, namely, his arguments are unan- 
swerable and they fear he might succeed. 

The men who have an overweening desire 
to hold office know that they have an ax to 
grind, know that what they want is not re- 
striction on the line of the greatest good to the 
greatest number. Now that they have the 
advantage they want the halter loosened a lit- 

148 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 149 

tie ; if they had just a Httle more latitude they 
could acquire millions ; they can not tolerate 
anything- less than present laws. These are 
the only men who have an overvveenine; desire 
to hold office and they are the first men to 
charge it to others. It is safe to impute to the 
man who makes an unexpected and strained 
charge the guilt that he charges on others. 

In business, if when a man is seeking a place 
he shows startling acuteness in damning and 
explaining complex plans of cheating; and steal- 
ing;, it is safe to suspect him and refuse to hire 
him on the ground that he shows too much ap- 
plication to that kind of knowledge. It is much 
safer to trust those who try to recommend 
themselves by explaining their views of how 
the business may be honorably conducted and 
enlarged. Politics is the business of the people 
and is the only business at this time in which 
any man is eligible who has a pull. It is not a 
question of how he got the pull, but rather has 
he got it ; if he has, everything else g;oes. 
When it is said that a man has a pull or is 
strong with a certain ring, it is equivalent to 
saying- that he is the pliant tool of said ring, 
but it does not sound so criminal. The ex- 
pression was coined, as so many have been, to 
hide a correct conception. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Success in Life Dependent on the Na- 
tional Laws Effecting the Margin 
Upon Which Individuals Do 

Business. 

The prosperity of a nation is dependent on 
the success of its individuals. Success in life 
has become an uncertain thing. No two mem- 
bers follow out the same course and win it. 
The number and kinds of systems to achieve 
success are commensurate with the number 
of men who have succeeded. To illustrate : 
Some twenty-five or thirty years ago dentists, 
after discovering any new and improved meth- 
od of performing a certain kind of operation, 
would close their doors to other dentists ; this 
advantage was used by them as a special fea- 
ture in their reputation ; which became known 
as empiricism and meant that every man who 
entered the profession had to start at the bot- 
tom and work out all his knowledge himself. If 
this kind of procedure had continued dentistry 
would still be in its infancy and be nothing 
higher than a trade, but it has been superseded 

150 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 151 

by colleo;es and associations. This makes the 
last §:eneration able to start where the preced- 
ing- one left off. Success in life has been ex- 
actly reversed ; some forty or fifty years ago 
there was a margin in this country to do busi- 
ness on ; every man, by following the taught 
and accepted regulations pertaining to econo- 
my and self-restraint was assured of a compe- 
tency, and no man felt hurt or jealous over 
someone else's success. During this period a 
civil war has convulsed this country, which 
was taken advantage of to enact laws that di- 
verted the margin from the people into the 
hands of the few, while their minds were occu- 
pied with other vitally interesting problems. 
Since the war the margin has continued to 
g;row less and less as time passed, until now 
there is no margin for the people ; with the 
closest economy they are unable to live free 
of debt Every year they live on less, but are 
compelled to give up some of the money or 
property that they had saved in former years. 
This forces the progressive to hold any advan- 
tages they may discover more and more from 
the people so that they may make a little 
something before it becomes generally known 



152 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

A country, after it has reached the Hmit of 
its margin, and is working" without and below 
one, becomes stationary and retrogressive. 
The rising generations have not the time and 
money to learn what is written and between 
themselves they are taciturn and uncommuni- 
cative. Every man has to start at the bottom 
and w^ork out his own destiny. 

The class of small talk that is most common 
on the street corners credits the self-made men, 
America's boasted uncrowned kings, with lay- 
ing the foundation of their fortunes by sharp 
practices, which, if the truth were known, would 
send them to the chaingang. If one has the 
right to base a prognostication on the drift of 
public sentiment, it is certainly most reasona- 
ble to say that this proud American title is fast 
becoming obnoxious to tKis people who hate 
titles of all sorts, and in the future it will can- 
ker in their minds. However, before such time 
has been reached it will have become obsolete. 
The fulsome panegyrics that now appear daily 
in the papers about a bare-foot boy who de- 
termined to do this or that great thing and did 
it after thousands of more deserving, more 
learned and conscientious men have failed, 
will be equivalent to saying that it couldn't be 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 153 

done without some effort that overstepped the 
Hmit of legitimate, humane business principles. 
Every boy that deserves to be called a grow- 
ing man has made the same assertions; they 
are common to this adolescent period of life; 
and are recalled by those who rise to great 
riches upon the idea that the fact of their hav- 
ing made such assertions demonstrated that 
it was innate with them and proved without 
further comment that the natural suspicions 
that the circumstances give rise to are not true 
in their case. 

The satirical homily of successful men when 
speaking of those who fail, has served them 
well, but the American people have learned 
that it is not all in the manner of living, spend- 
ing too much money, living too high and lack 
of judgment. They are learning to see that 
when a man says "do like I did, live on noth- 
ing, until you get a start," means something 
more than the speaker tells, for the closest 
scrutiny will often fail to reveal at what period 
of life he carried out this plan. Many hun- 
dreds of thousands have tried the plan and 
found that it was without foundation. This 
is why they have now turned their attention 
to investigating the only other predisposing 



154 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

cause of failure in this land that so bountifully 
provides, but at the same time withholds the 
common comforts and necessities of life— our 
government, which had been placed in the 
hands of a class, under the belief that they 
were too loyal to America to be guilty of class 
laws. Loyalty to this belief has caused our 
people to subject themselves to the most thor- 
ough search to find the trouble. They have 
borrowed from the doctors the plan of diag- 
nosis by exclusion. Where a physician is puz- 
zled over a hidden disease, he begins to hunt 
for it by taking up separately every disease 
that each symptom or pain suggests, and com- 
pares the symptoms of the disease with those 
shown by the patient. After he finds that they 
can not be made to coincide, he excludes that 
disease. The people have taken up each one 
of the suggestions as to why they can not make 
a living and demonstrated to their own minds 
that this was not the true disease until they 
have reached that which they ought to have 
started with — our government. Undoubtedly 
the most strenuous and, it is to be feared, most 
desperately dangerous efforts will be made to 
scratch them off again. The people, having no 
statesmen leaders, will be liable, in the intrica- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 155 

cies of our government, to be switched on to 
the wron^ track and may exhaust themselves 
in trying to fathom, undo, and remake the 
laws. Taking into consideration the firm hold 
on power that our classes are enjoying, and 
the pressing- distress of the people, it is exceed- 
ingly hard to see how relief can come before 
the patience of the people has been succeeded 
by desperation. It all depends upon the kind 
of leaders that the people select in the immedi- 
ate future; this should be done carefully and 
understanding^ ; it need not be left to chance 
and no risks should be taken. No man's mere 
word will do if his past contradicts hini. The 
decisive time has come and the people must 
win or loose on the battlefield of politics while 
they still have the sovereign weapon, the 
ballot, in their hands. After the people have 
so patiently followed the laws and sugges- 
tions that have been made they should be 
competent to follow up any new suggestion or 
law to its logical end. The time most surely 
is past when correct opinions can be dismissed 
with pessimistic satires and optimistic illu- 
sions. 



CHAPTER XXXIL 

Some Suggestions on Personal Success 
AND What it Implies. 

Successful men who are personally inter- 
ested in young; men by family ties may give to 
them advice that is not specious, but, as has 
been shown, advice from these men is dang-er- 
ous, more apt to ruin than help men who have 
their feet on the first round of the ladder of 
fortune and will succeed if they follow, after 
careful review of their environments, their ow^n 
intuitive volition. To ask advice the situation 
must be explained and if there is any money 
to be made out of said situation the one asking- 
advice makes a rival who will discourag-e him 
so that he may take it up himself ; but if there 
is no money in it he gets encourag:ement; 
there mig:ht be a ''spec" in buying- him up 
after he fails. 

Our public policy brings the people to this. 
Our whole people are wild over bargain hunt- 
ing; people, when they see a man about to fail, 
hold off until afterwards to buy what they 
want. Why? Because we, as a people, have 

156 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 157 

learned that we can't have what we want and 
pay a legitimate profit, so we are all trying- to 
make up the deficit and force a margin in this 
way. Our young lawyers have an up-hill 
road to climb; they are never noticed for 
cleverness and probity; to win success they 
must gain a case where all the law and facts 
appeared to be on the other side, and they must 
learn how to make facts lose their substance 
and substitute for them their version. One 
success of this kind will bring corporations 
flocking to them. If they make a superhuman 
effort and snatch justice from the grasp of 
greed they repel the paying business and win 
only the gratitude of the man they served. 
This is poor pay and will soon grow irksome. 
Ambition must have the wings that money 
brings. 

Where there is no margin to do business on 
the youth of that country can not be taught 
how to succeed — it is too humiliating to the 
teacher. Pluck, stick-at-it-iveness and deter- 
mination mean volumes; when one is told to 
make up their minds and then go in to win 
they are told all that there is. They must un- 
derstand these expressions to mean that they 
must do others or others will do them, as the 



158 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

expression goes. Wealth now implies the ac- 
cumulation of the money that should belong; 
to many in the hands of one person. If the 
inhabitants of a country have no balance of 
trade in their favor with other nations they 
have no profit, and anything that obstructs 
that balance of trade reduces the profit. So 
much has been said about falling" prices and 
free silver, the people's money, until the people 
have come to believe that falling- prices have 
their orig:in there. This is not true; falling- 
prices have their origin in the obstruction that 
reduces profits. Twenty years ago America 
had commerce in her favor by at least 125 per 
cent.; the tariff was 100 per cent, and there was 
a balance in our favor of at least 25 per cent, 
above this. Gradually since that time our 
profits have been lowered by competition; 
other nations are raising cotton and wheat 
and other kinds of our produce, which have 
been bought in preference to ours, leaving an 
overproduction on our hands, thus lowering 
the price. When the price was lowered to the 
tariff (now it is only 1:8 to 50 per cent.) there 
was no profit and every point that prices 
dropped below our tariff made our prices just 
so much below cost. The tariff must be one- 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 159 

third above living- prices now. If we could 
buy in the same market that we sell in we 
would to-day have a profit of 66^ per cent, 
and not 1 cent less money ; we would sell at 
the same price that we now sell at, and buy, 
in round numbers, 50 per cent, cheaper. This 
would leave in every man's pocket 50 per cent, 
of what he pays for all g;oods that the tariff 
levies duty on, which would increase our cir- 
culating medium from 25 to 50 per cent, per 
annum. Instead of having- no money, we 
would have a surplus and cheap enough goods 
to compete with the world in any class of 
manufacture. But our statesmen say people 
will not pay the taxes so easily by the direct 
method, which would be true if they saw no 
benefit to be derived from paying- taxes. The 
fatal mistake that this government is making 
is that its people pay enormous taxes and get 
no returns. The people should be taught that 
government means more than sending them 
to prison and hanging them for their crimes, 
that it means to protect them in their rights 
and preserve for them a market in which to sell 
the produce that they are toiling for. When 
a country adopts the policy that prevails here 
they subvert their institutions from a govern- 
ment for the people and by the people into a 



i6o Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

vampire sucking the life out of its own family. 
We shut out other nations from selling; their 
goods here ; they return the compliment by 
going: to other lands and producing what we 
could sell them. They go to Egypt, to Africa, 
to China, to India, and conquer those coun- 
tries with their armies and raise their own sup- 
plies and shut us out from selling our produce 
in said countries. In addition to all this they 
obtain a market in which to sell their manu- 
factured goods at a profit. 

England can go to her people and say, ''We 
will tax you 20 per cent., if need be, for the 
purpose of building ships and keeping up an 
enormous standing army and navy, but it will 
be returned to you in profits on goods that 
your government, by this means, enable you to 
sell"; this takes the burden out of taxes. Eng- 
land is a manufacturing country, therefore 
she needs a market to sell her manufactured 
goods in and buy her raw material and provi- 
sions from. America is a producing country ; 
we need a market to sell our raw material and 
provisions in. If we would open our doors to 
the commerce of Europe we would be able to 
pay enormous taxes and build navies and 
keep a standing army with the best of them. 
The balance of trade would be largely in our 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. i6i 

favor and, as we g:rew strong:er, we could com- 
pete in manufacturing-, as we do now, notwith- 
standing- the great disadvantages we labor 
under. If we needed more fields for markets 
we could conquer them. It might be that we 
would see it to our advantage to go in and 
compete in Africa and China to prevent 
Europe from raising all her produce and 
shutting us out of a market. The Monroe 
doctrine is all right, but does not go far 
enough ; the world has advanced. America 
should have all of North and South America 
and commence at once to secure it. We are 
at least fifty years behind the European gov- 
ernments on matters pertaining to the benefits 
of eovernment to the people. Show this peo- 
pie that government is not a burden and they 
will pay their taxes quickly and plenty of them. 
We can have the finest navy that floats and 
people so proud of their country that they will 
conquer the world if they wish. If there were 
statesmen to-day, as in past times, they would 
see the niggardly parsimony of our policy and 
rise with burning; eloquence to denounce it ; 
they would give us the true policy of great 
powers based upon an advanced republican 
form. This is a day of little men, there is no 

doubt of that. 
11 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

National Success. How to Get Rich in 

America To-day. 

Individual success will make national suc- 
cess. A nation is worse than a failure where 
all the gain and property g"ravitates into the 
hands of a few; there all the inhabitants are 
at outs with each other and there is continual 
bickering, strife, and threatened disruption. 
This state of affairs can only prevail in a 
country where there is dense ignorance on the 
part of the masses; this explains why so 
many countries have discouraged education. 
America can not support both policies at one 
and the same time. The free education that 
she gives her children must stop or the policy 
must stop. When people are educated their 
necessities increase and they are not satisfied 
to wear the coarsest clothes and have meat once 
a week and see others that they know to be no 
better than they are rolling in wealth and lux~ 
uries, which were obtained by fraud and secret 
manipulation. They will know that it is un- 
just for a few to have tremendous profits and 

162 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 163 

the masses hardly enough to eat and wear. 
There is but one system to follow to g-et rich, 
but that is a vig-orous and rigid system. It is 
expressed in terse form, to wit: All things 
come around to those that know how to wait. 
When we analyze this we find that it means 
to live very close and take all the advantages 
you can to save a little money. When you 
have done this do not take hold of anything 
that anybody else tries to talk you into, 
but wait until somebody, by dire distress, is 
forced to sell something for one-tenth of its 
value and that you know the value of. Never 
take any risks. Where you do not know the 
real value let the trade go and wait until you 
do, as there will be plenty more chances. This 
system means that wealth is founded upon 
distress. Fostering infant industries is the 
spurious name given to a protective tariff. 
The real significance of it is to transfer the 
profit from the people to the pockets of the 
few. The few are not satisfied with all the 
profit; they now want all the property as well. 
To get it they must hold the prices from 10 to 
25 per cent, higher than the people's income. 
Then they only have to wait a few years and 
they have it all, for 10 or 15 per cent, a year 



164 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

compounded will soon do the work. If it were 
not for the fraudulent failures, fires, etc., the 
wonderful resources of the country and the un- 
equaled ingenuity of the people, they would 
have had it all before now. 

These reciprocal maneuvers of the people 
have been narrowed down until the circle of 
capital's power is complete; for five years they 
have been tightening- the pressure. We must 
have revenue to run the government and the 
direct tax plan may be too revolutionary, but 
that is the true plan and should be kept well 
in mind and departed from as little as possi- 
ble. Otherwise we will be reduced to the 
condition that has so often obtained in old 
countries; we will have but two classes, the 
very rich and the very poor. If there is no 
margin one must be made. This is done by 
forcing the masses to live so far below the 
average expense per capita that they make up 
the deficit and artificially produce a margin, 
which margin goes into the hands of the rich 
class. We can illustrate by supposing the 
average expense of the people to be $25 per 
month per capita ; if five-sixths live on $10 per 
month the other one-sixth will have their $25 
and the $15 per capita of the other five-sixths 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 165 

added to that. Heretofore it has taken the 
older nations several centuries to accomplish 
this. If our policy continues it will be done in 
America in one-third of a century. Up to 
18G0 our statesmen made equitable laws and 
this was a nation happily ruled by them. 
When the little unpleasantness was over 
in 1865, a new government had been formed. 
This new government has reduced the coun- 
try to our present straits since that time ; but 
this new government has made one mistake; 
it has permitted education to go on, and there 
is little of the superstition of the divine right 
of kings and sacredness of lords and nobles, 
nor is there a vestige of the dogged plodding 
patience of ignorance to be found in our low- 
est classes which is so prevalent among the 
peasantry of Europe, therefore this country 
will not be reduced as low as Europe is before 
its citizens will see that revolution must come 
and they will use their ballots to that end. It 
is and will be dangerous to tamper with that 
ballot longer. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Great Financial Question. Free 

Silver. 

The great financial question that is shaking- 
this continent will probably have to be tem- 
porarily settled by trying; the free and unlimit- 
ed coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. 
This will furnish education on our public poli- 
cy, when the people learn that those who now 
have millions to control them with will have 
added millions, they will have learned that it 
is not the money made in a country that 
makes its people rich, but the money they g:et 
by having; the balance of trade in itheir favor, 
which must be paid in something; intrinsically 
worth the purchase price. After a trial of free 
silver they will have cleared the dust from 
their minds that prevents a clear view of the 
policy of nations. All that other nations can 
g;et out of this continent to-day is our g-old, so 
they have addressed themselves to that task. 
Throw open our ports to their commerce and 
we can g;et it back by selling- 50 to 66 per cent, 
more produce and raw material than our man- 

166 



Ours is the Rui.e of Dead Men. 167 

ufactured g;oods cost. We don't want this 
surplus paid in a metal that has a fluctuating- 
value. When the §:old begins to leave those 
countries they will cry loud enough for silver. 
If the government had the money that the 
tariff puts in the pockets of monopolists and 
manufacturers we would build ships enough 
to sweep the other nations off the seas and take 
the countries, if need be, that Europe is using; 
to force and ruin us with, by producing there 
the products that bring us our living. The 
people pay this tax now without much com- 
plaint when it is used to oppress them ; if 
they could be shown how it would bless them 
they w^ould gladly hand it over to Uncle Sam. 
In the nature of things there can be but one 
course that will bring international free coinage 
of silver on a secure basis and that is virtual 
free trade in America. America would be 
vastly better off if our factories were closed 
and we entered into a system of bartering our 
produce with Europe for their manufactured 
goods, provided we could make them take all 
our surplus produce at European prices and pay 
for this surplus produce with gold and manu- 
factured goods, also at European prices. The 
reason why this is desirable is plain. As it is 



i68 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

now, we ship Liverpool our raw material and 
are paid Liverpool prices for it ; then we buy 
it back at the Liverpool manufacturer's price, 
with the 50 per cent, tariff duty on manufac- 
tured goods added. Free trade should not be 
bunglingly done by throwing down the fence 
indiscriminately. We should know from the 
nations that were accorded the privilege of 
selling their goods in America without duty 
that they would allow us to enter their ports 
with equal freedom. Mr. Blaine's reciprocity 
policy showed him to be a true statesman, but 
at that time the little men were too strong to 
permit a statesman to succeed. Times are 
somewhat different now, however. America 
can not get to her true policy as a nation with- 
out first trying free silver ; this is needed to 
complete her education. It would, of course, 
be better if she could force it upon the world. 
The trouble is that this people know absolute- 
ly nothing about the policy of nations. Free 
coinage will teach that policy to them. It is 
said that it is too expensive an experiment. 
This is not the case; on the other hand no ex- 
pense could be too great that would teach 
them that we, the people, know about as much 
about our foreign policy as we know about 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 169 

judgment day, and that we can not afford to 
remain longer in ignorance of such a vital di- 
vision. 

What we need is a staff of officials that are 
not blinded by selfish greed and personal 
aggrandizement, who will take hold of our 
affairs and give their ability to the upbuilding 
of our institutions on the basis of the good of 
the nation as a whole. When free silver shall 
have been tried and it has brought no margin 
this will be done. Free silver can not change 
the price of what we sell in Europe, where the 
supply and demand of the world is calculated 
and prices set, nor can free silver affect the 
tariff which fixes the prices of what we buy, 
and there is no money in the country to induce 
new enterprises. How it will put a dollar in 
the producer's pocket is a mystery no one can 
explain, but if it costs America five hundred 
million dollars and teaches her people her true 
national policy, it will be cheap education. They 
are paying that much a year to the monopo- 
lists. The Republican party will fail to bring 
prosperity with their return to power. The 
policy that the members of the republican par- 
ty have systematically pursued has been to 
prove to the people that no other party could 



170 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

prove of benefit to the country except said 
Republican party. Its more astute members 
foresaw that something- must be done to pre- 
vent Mr. Cleveland from making the success 
of his second administration that he had made 
of his first. If failure should be met at this 
point it would be fatal to the future usefulness 
of the Republican party — to those who consti- 
tuted its backbone. The only way to turn 
their defeated state to their advantage was to 
change the drift of sentiment from its decided 
free trade tendency into a channel that was 
decidedly more pressing, viz., the question of 
money in the hands of the people. If they 
could make the people feel that under Demo- 
cratic rule their ability to better their income 
'was curtailed, they would produce a revolution 
of sentiment that would return them to power 
with great eclat on the bosom of its mighty 
current. The great monopolists and manipu- 
lating financiers, who constitute the bone and 
sinew of the Republican party by virtue of 
owning the money of the nation, had only to 
agree together that they would cease develop- 
ment, curtail activities in their industries, loan 
no money on collateral unless it suited them, 
and to force payment wherever they found a 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 171 

debt maturing rather than make new loans to 
bring" the people around to their views. In 
addition to this they forced the price of raw 
material or produce to the lowest possible 
point by refusing- the money to move the crop 
with and buying as little of it as they could 
use and pay expenses on. Their calculations 
were based on correct principles and they have 
promptly and effectually brought the people to 
their feet, but now that they have them there, 
what are they going to do? The industrial 
condition has assumed a vastly different as- 
pect to that which existed when they put 
on foot the plans which were to destroy their 
enemy. The question of questions which now 
confronts them is have they destroyed them- 
selves along with the enemy ? Their policy 
has brought them into the actual possession 
of all the great railway and steamship naviga- 
tion lines and all other enterprises of note ; 
small investors have been pushed out without 
receiving any value for their stock and the 
people have not made a living on the land. 
For these reasons there is no money to support 
the enterprises we have, therefore, no more 
could be needed. If there is absolutely noth- 
ing that will induce new enterprises and guar- 



172 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

antee increased output of the old and we are 
to continue to shut America out of new mar- 
kets by increasing- the tariff, there can nothing; 
follow the present Republican administration 
but growing disaster; but, however trying this 
system of teaching may be to the people, the 
lesson will be cheap if they learn that any ar- 
tificial margin that goes into the pockets of 
individuals, as the tariff operates in America, is 
sure to sweep the money of the country into 
their hands. If it takes 15 per cent, margin to 
do business on and there is an artificial margin 
above that by keeping out competition of 35 
per cent., said 35 per cent, is unlawfully held 
from the people. It is theirs by right, or was 
until they voted that right away. The pro- 
tected infants do pay most of the taxes by 
buying the high-priced foreign goods and lol- 
ling in the luxurious stupor of French wines. 
When the Democrats came into control they 
attempted to stop this nonsense,but the Repub- 
licans met them by abandoning; their pleasures 
and luxuries for the purpose of bringing on a 
deficit in the revenues. This was the most overt 
and telling move they made when the last over- 
flow in their favor was induced, but the people 
do not want to pay their taxes that way any 



OuKS IS THE Rule of Dead Men. 173 

lono-er. It ruins our national character and 
shuts out the world from sympathizing; with or 
buying of us. This is just a starter of what it 
does; it shuts us out of being; a nation of men 
who understand g;overnment. There are only 
a few of our richest men who come in contact 
with other countries and feel the force of said 
contact. To-day is the g;reat day of conven- 
tions, assemblies and associations. Every 
man who has attended one of these g;athering;s 
has felt himself stimulated, encourag;ed and- 
instructed. If America were in touch with 
her sister nations, by selling; and buying; direct, 
every producer would know what was wanted 
in every European country and what could be 
sold there to the best advantag-e. Every mer- 
chant would know^ the articles that were man- 
ufactured there and the best markets to buy in. 
What would become of home manufacture ? 
Home manufacture would be g;reatly stimu- 
lated and the output increased. The people 
would have money to buy with ; they would 
buy from 50 to 100 per cent, more than they 
now buy, and they would have freio^ht rates and 
home sympathy in their favor, and the addi- 
tional fact of being; able to manufacture g;oods 
cheaper than other countries. Monopolists 



174 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

have demonstated in this country that they can 
drive nrien harder and pay less wages in com- 
parison to prices and profits received under a 
protective tariff than is done in any other coun- 
try in the world. This power could not be ex- 
erted with absolute sway except where there was 
real and dense i§;norance concerning; govern- 
ment for the people as opposed to government 
for the classes. It is said that we have a gov- 
ernment of the people and for the people, but 
what we have is a government of the people for 
the classes. Monarchical rule is much to be 
preferred to this, inasmuch as those who inherit 
official position will protect their interests by 
protecting the people from other unjust op- 
pression. Our infants have been protected un- 
til they have grown to be our masters, who 
whip us into line with the heaviest and most 
unsparing lashes. It would be tedious and 
useless to illustrate these facts by comparison; 
everyone has heard and seen and placed them 
in parallel columns over and over again. 
What is needed is to get at them from the 
correct point of view. 

Free silver is not logically a Democratic 
measure. Were it possible to make it good 
money and by some as yet unexplained plan, 



Ours is the Rule of Dead Met^. 175 

it could be gotten into the hands of the people, 
it certainly would be most beneficial to those 
who were in favor of and profited by high 
tariff. The 50 per cent, profit that the said 
tariff gives above the price that the consumer 
would pay for the same goods, if allowed to 
buy in the same market in which producers 
sold, has gleaned the money out of the coun- 
try. It stands to reason, therefore, that those 
who have been the beneficiaries of this glean- 
ing would be the most anxious and able ex- 
ponents of any plan whereby more money 
would be distributed for them to glean. When 
money begins to leave the people they begin 
to take extraordinary steps to hold as much 
as they can. First, they begin to hoard, but 
after a time they see that they can gain but 
little by this plan. They must either go to 
buying and bartering what is forced on the 
market by failures or place their holdings 
with the mushroom investment companies that 
this condition always gives rise to. Said com- 
panies get their power from the history of 
similar companies that were successful in 
times when money could be gotten to carry 
out their plans, but which are sure to fail in 
times when finances are so low, or they base 



176 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

their promises of big dividends on the fact 
that nine-tenths of those they are inducing- to 
come in will fail to meet their obligations, 
thereby losing all that they had invested. As 
times grow still harder less and less honorable 
methods are resorted to. 

THE END. 



LOVE'S LIMITATION. 

BY MABEL BOYD. 

Last nig:ht an ang:el came to my dwelling; 
place, bringing- with him, into the coldness and 
loneliness. lig:ht, warmth and peace. I showed 
him my bare larder, my cheerless room, my 
empty purse, my shabby raiment, my plain 
face, my bent form, and my dull and witless 
brain ; but he smiled a radiant smile, as if all 
this mattered not, and still stayed with me. So 
I opened to him my heart, where Self, and Self 
alone, found room to dwell. His smile faded 
and his face g:rew sad, but there w^as hope in his 
look and still he stayed. But honesty, my one 
virtue, whispered I had not shown him all. 
Then I laid bare my soul and bade him look 
upon its only tenant, the demon of Ambition. 
Hope left the eyes of my ang-el and, with his 
white wings drooping, he went out into the 
nig-ht. 

I awoke with a bitter cry, for it was Love 
himself whom I had driven from me — Love, 
beautiful and eternal, who fears neither cold, 
want, hung-er, uncomeliness of face or form, nor 
lack of wit, who can even drive Self from her 

177 



178 Ours is the Rule of Dead Men. 

throne in the human heart; but who turns 
away powerless from a soul dominated by a 
desire for a name among men and by greed 
of eold. 



'A 



